Kill Ticks In The Lawn - Two high school students at the Virginia Military Institute recently built a fascinating robot that controls and kills ticks, mosquitoes, and fleas in a lawn. About the size of a Tonka Toy truck and running on four wheels, the tickbot travels along releasing carbon dioxide, which happens to attract those three pests. This tick-buster has a trailing denim skirt on to which the insects attach themselves. They die because the skirt is laced with permethrin, one of the insecticides effective against ticks, fleas, and mosquitoes. In a test they released 75 ticks in a yard and in eight hours the tickbot had killed 72. I hope some venture capitalist is planning on bring that creative tool to market soon.
