Joshua Marshall

The issue of climate change does not have one solution, it requires a range of solutions to chip away at the years of damage we have caused. One of which is planting trees, more importantly recreating, and establishing new habitats. Trees act as carbon capsules, soaking up carbon dioxide as they grow, while releasing oxygen. A recent study asked, “what if one trillion more trees were planted tomorrow?” Over their lifetime they would capture 1/6th of humanities emissions. This would assist in solving the climate change challenge but if done right, create new habitats for other species. The question this project started to investigate was how are we going to do this?

Tree planting is romanticised, I couldn’t imagine that the landscape was difficult to traverse, wet, muddy and the seeds being so heavy. Planting 1000 trees in a day seemed unachievable, yet some workers push though. The work was exhausting.
There is a lack of consistency in most tree planting operations, such as the tools used, the holes dug and the spacing between trees. This is because there are very few efficient tree planting tools.
The importance of information is undeniable. Information leads knowledge. From there we can take action. Scientists don’t have a trees history when determining cause of death. What if we could keep that history, could we discover other factors?

This is Tovel. A tree planting shovel designed from the ground up with mass tree planting in mind. While this project could have looked into autonomous or mechanised planting solutions, it instead approaches the issue in a more practical sense. Tools like shovels and spades are universally understood. Leveraging this allows the design to be implemented anywhere by any one, thus increasing uptake. Shovels and spades have relied on continuous improvement over time. This, however, does not mean they are effective tree planters. Tovel reconsiders the purpose of a shovel for tree planting. Tovel implements technology in a way that in useful, ensuring value has been added, not taken away.

Spades and shovels lack a history of ergonomic research. Through experimentation and user experience I discovered the faults of these tools for planting trees. The affordance provided by D handles at the top of spades led to users applying force through their arms. Most users thus relied on upper body strength which strained their wrists. This design removes the D handle, extends the shaft and instead suggests the user to use their legs and body weight by providing a generous step to apply force. The asymmetrical design allows the user to quickly release their foot if they become unstable. The shaft's cross section also prevents the spade from rotating while in use.

When outplanting, each user becomes independent, and if their trees aren’t spaced out correctly, they are required to replant them when inspected. This can be avoided. Once a seedling is scanned, Tovel logs its location and directs the user 3 meters away. This is shown though the green and red LEDs.
Another intervention is blade sharpening. Cutting though soil with a blunt spade is like cutting raw meat with a blunt knife. It’s not efficient. As the spade knows how many trees it has planted, it can remind the owner to sharpen it after a specified number of trees. Keeping the blade in an optimal condition thus increasing efficiency.

Making a device smart often has bad connotations. Technology implemented must have a greater purpose.
I created a system to track trees, so that a researcher could approach a tree and learn from it. By providing each seedling with a biodegradable barcode, we can suddenly itemise every tree in the forest. We can assign data to this code and create a history for each seedling. We would now know when it was planted, where it grew up or what the climate was at the nursery. This information can help researchers understand why some trees don’t survive. Each tree is logged by a scanner at the end of the shovel as it is planted. Then the GPS coordinates replace the barcode because trees don’t move.