Oxford Community Park to receive robot for field marking

Starting in the spring of 2026, the Oxford Parks and Recreation Department will save more than $7,500 annually by employing a robot to paint lines on some of its athletic fields.

The “TinyMobileRobot,” by TinyMobileRobots US, will be given to the city this winter at a discounted rate after Oxford was one of several municipalities to lose grant funding following the biannual turnover of the state’s budget, according to Chad Smith, director of the Oxford Parks and Recreation Department.

Smith said the city was originally meant to receive a grant from the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) for field-marking robots which would cover most of around $70,000 worth of machinery if the city paid $16,000. 

According to Smith, around 40 municipalities around the state applied for the same grant. 

“The BWC lost the funding during the state biennium budget, and at the 12th hour, we had already … appropriated money for the grant match,” Smith said, “but the core grant that we were going to get from TinyMobileRobots by way of BWC got pulled at the last minute, so we thought we were dead in the water.”

But after working closely with the company, Smith said they agreed to sell it outright at a largely discounted price over the course of three payment installments. This year, the city will pay $12,900, and in 2026 and 2027, the city will pay more than $13,347 each year.

Overall, he said this robot will save the city a minimum of $1,070 annually on paint and supplies alone and a minimum of 219 staff hours, or $6,416 annually. At that rate, the robot could pay for itself within six years. 

The robot will be installed at the Oxford Community Park in the winter, and the city expects to have a demonstration in the spring, Smith said. Currently, the park is home to public soccer and baseball fields.

“Now what we do is we have two staff persons, and that’s a big part of their day during soccer and baseball season, is walking and striping those fields by hand,” he said. “This will save hours of time, and then they’ll be able to better use that time savings to do all their other duties and running these sports leagues and caring for the facilities.”

Smith said the city was also given an attachment for the robot for free which allows it to mark on pavement. He said this could potentially be used to assist other city departments like the service department, which stripes parking lots.

New playground equipment

Smith told the Oxford Recreation Board during a meeting on Dec. 8, construction for the new playground at the Oxford Community Park is expected to begin sometime this winter and will likely take four to six weeks. He said this means it could be open to the public as early as February. 

The Oxford City Council previously approved a resolution allowing the city manager to enter a contract with DWA Recreation for the new playground for children ages 2 to 5 during a meeting on Nov. 18.

The playground will replace the existing equipment near the baseball fields, and new rubber will be poured to surround the equipment area.

“That park was built around the year 2000, and that playground is the original,” he said. “So it’s a 25-year-old playground. So it was time. That’s about the lifespan on those things.”

Smith said the city has been trying to incrementally replace playgrounds around the city through Community Development Block Grants.

In October last year, the city council approved the funding for a new playground at Merry Day Park, as well as the new equipment at the Oxford Community Park. Smith said the playground replacement at Merry Day Park was completed in 2024.