The Student Who Built a Robot to Save Portugal's Forests

What if robots could go where people can’t? To dangerous, rocky terrain, not to explore, but to rebuild. Wildfires have turned the once luscious, green forests into barren landscapes where plants can’t grow. For people like Marta Benardino, this wasn’t something she saw in the news, or read about in books, but this was something she witnessed happen to the place she called home.

  Marta Bernardino is a 20 year old college student, who, along with one of her friends, Sebastião Mendonça, is working to develop robots that can reach some areas of earth where it is challenging for humans to, and plant more trees there. 

The pair grew up near Lisbon, Portugal, and always thought that the trees would be there forever. However, this proved to be shockingly untrue. A study showed that between 1980 and 2023, Portugal lost over 54% of their wildlife territory. This was mainly due to wildfires.

Initially, Marta and Sebastião believed that nature would be able to fix herself over time. However, this was untrue, since the soil was far too damaged. They learned that even though there were volunteers trying to help regrow the forest, it wasn’t working due to the fact that most of the damaged territory was in steep, rocky terrain in Portugal. They understood that the existing solutions were failing to properly solve the problem, and decided to find a new approach to solving this problem. 

They decided to work to create a robot, Trovador, in 2023. The robot was supposed to be able to plant trees quickly and efficiently, even in unsafe terrain. The robot, Trovador, is similar to a regular hexapod. It has several advantages like higher mobility, stability, and efficiency. The robot has the capabilities to climb slopes up to 45 degrees, as well as avoiding any boulders in its way. The robot is also a lot more efficient than humans, since it can plant up to 200 saplings an hour. Unlike tractors, the robot barely makes an indent on the ground, allowing space for air and water in the soil. Trovador also can upload data points, such as the sapling’s GPS coordinates, soil humidity, and pH levels. 

While their first prototype was made out of recycled materials and cost only $17, they are working to build more versions of the robot. In 2024, they were a top finalist for National Geographic’s Slingshot Challenge, and won a grant of $10,000!

The versions that are being built are getting made out of PVC tubes, as well as a lot of recycled materials, which is only helping the environment. Marta is working to create newer and better versions, since this one has drawbacks. Some of these drawbacks include that it is complex to build by hand, it has very weak maintenance, and it utilizes large amounts of power. The robot gets a limited endurance which reduces its working time significantly. 

Landscape architects believe that Trovador has a lot of potential. They are extremely optimistic and believe that the robot can help with the reforestation. Even though there are new tools being created to help with reforestation, it is still important to work to stop deforestation, since we are losing trees faster than we can plant them. 

The price of such an object also needs to be considered when deciding whether people will use this invention. The robot needs to be affordable so that it can be used on a large scale by people all over the world. The pair believes that prices will go down, as it will be significantly cheaper than other reforestation methods, such as paying people to do it. 
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Both Marta and Sebastião believe that this will be an invention that helps our Earth a lot. The inventors believe that with this robot and new technology, reforestation will be fast and precise, and will help us make up for lost time. 
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