Permethrin is an insecticide used to kill ticks and other bugs. It’s found in dog collars and on mosquito nets, and some farmers spray it on crops, but the chemical can cause skin irritation in people, and it kills honey bees, so VMI engineering professor Jim Squire set out to build a better tick trap.
“To create a robot that drags a cloth behind it, and the cloth is impregnated with permethrin, so no permethrin is left in the environment," he explains. "The tick attaches to the cloth, climbs along it, and it absorbs the permethrin. The tick falls off and dies within 24 hours, leaving almost no permethrin in the environment at all.”
Early tests showed this approach killed 85-95% of ticks in the area where the tick rover was used. Student Joseph Lieber was excited to read about the research.
“When I first learned I was going to be going to VMI, I immediately e-mailed the department head of engineering. He got me involved in the tick rover project – doing some of the mechanical work," Lieber recalls. "I was able to compete with them in the IEEE circuits and systems competition which we won in North America and then went on to compete internationally.”
He and VMI Professor Jay Sullivan are deeply concerned about the environment and were glad to be part of this project.
“Compared to a company that dumps gallons of permethrin into the environment, a technology like this – where you’re dumping maybe grams of the stuff, it’s very exciting to me,” Sullivan says.
“And really that’s what it comes down to for engineering," Lieber adds. "You want to build something that helps someone – that makes someone’s quality of life much better."
Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Old Dominion University are testing ten tick rovers, hoping to provide additional data in about six months.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
