News (in the form of a published study) about straw checkerboard paving robots:
“Dynamics analysis on transverse cutting mechanism of straw checkerboard paving robot,” Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, Yu Ye, ShuFa Sun and JinHao Liu, 4(5), 2012, pp. 0439~0445. (Thanks to investigator Tom Gill for bringing this to our attention.)
Straw checkerboard paving has its roots in the soil, perhaps needless to say. A recent patent shows a new twist on the method, while explaining briefly what that method is and why strawboard checkerboard supporters support the use of straw checkerboarding:
“Sand drift prevention method, method of forming and improving vegetation in…“, US patent # 8113739, issued February 14, 2012, to Osamu Mito, Kazuya Matsumura, Koji Sasaki, Takenobu Okumura, Shigeto Matsumoto, Makoto Maeda. It says:
“A sand drift prevention method in which a plurality of columnar sandbags made of a tubular knit fabric are placed so as to cross over one another, and in such a pitch that 3 to 30 sandbags are disposed for every ten meters, and in which the cross-sectional area of each of the columnar sandbags is 10 to 400 cm2. A method of forming and improving the vegetation in sandy soil in which drift of sand is prevented by the sand drift prevention method, a plant desired to grow is grown in the sandy soil surface exposed as being surrounded by columnar sandbags placed so as to cross over one another.”
The patent document flaunts this explanatory drawing:
