The Design of a Tick-Collecting Robot

Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness that is transmitted through the bite of certain species of infected ticks. According to the CDC, approximately 476,000 people may get Lyme disease each year in the United States, and that number is on an increasing trend. For this reason, research on ticks is necessary in order to further understand and combat this disease. In order to research ticks, they need to be collected. Typically, they are collected through a process called “dragging” which involves the dragging of a large cloth across vegetation floor to check for the presence of ticks. This method is effective, however it requires the researcher to put themselves at potential risk of infection. The goal of this project is to remove this risk while still accomplishing the task of collecting ticks. This project is a low-profile, remote controlled tick collecting robot, meaning that no physical interaction has to be made between the researcher and the ticks. It utilizes a cloth type similarly used in the tick “dragging” method and contains an active collection system with rollers to ensure that the ticks do not flee from the cloth. The robot will be handed off to the biology department to aid in their ongoing important research on ticks.