How it all began....How it all began....At the start of 1976, neither the CSIRO nor Norman Lewis developments had penetrated the peace and tranquillity of the beautifully landscaped campus of The University of Western Australia at Crawley, nestling between the bushland of Kings Park and the Swan River. However, at the end of 1975 the head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Professor David Allen-Williams met the local Corporation manager who told him about the developments in wool harvesting. Prof A-W (as we called him) was always on the look out for industrially relevant research programmes, particularly ones which could attract financial support. When he learned of the enormous sums being expended on the Wool Harvesting research programme, he was particularly keen to meet the Corporation's development engineer, Alan Richardson. A meeting was arranged in Sydney, and Alan was persuaded to present a seminar during his next visit to Perth.
I still have a vivid recollection of the light hearted afternoon tea conversation before the seminar on March 26th. I was both amused and incredulous when Prof A-W mentioned the idea of farmers spending tens of thousands of dollars on a robot. But Roy Leslie quickly pointed out that wheat farmers were prepared to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on a harvester to use for just a few days per year. I thought again and went along to the seminar.
Alan Richardson presented an amazing story. He showed photographs of experimental production line shearing sheds with sheep hung upside down for shearing. Other sheep stood naked with pink wrinkly skin, their fleece having fallen out through the action of chemicals. Vague drawings of the two shearing machines being built were flashed in front of us too quickly to take it all in. Yet the one fact that remained in all of our minds was the amount of money being spent to find a solution. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions were being spent. For us, a ten thousand dollar research grant seemed like a king's ransom, yet here was a quarter of a million being spent overseas in the belief that there was no expertise in Australia. We knew we could do better at a fraction of the cost. Alan was hard pressed to answer the questions and we were left with an invitation to join in the race for a solution.
Meanwhile, Jim Blair, who was in charge of research in control and computer applications in the department, had written a proposal to commence research on a sheep shearing system. To avoid the appearance of outright competition with CSIRO and SDSRC projects, the proposal focussed on linking the components of a shearing system together by control computers, rather than the more narrow focus of the other projects on the shearing process itself.
By September, Roy Leslie had started with modest funding which was sufficient for a study tour to see sheep handling devices which had already been invented in WA and the eastern states.
By the end of 1976, the first act was nearing its climax. PATS had commissioned their machine and reported good results with initial shearing tests at Cambridge, but wanted to develop additional refinements before more testing was undertaken. The Corporation was concerned about the relevance of these tests, and was keen to see the machine tried with Australian sheep. English sheep are round, with open fleeces and firm flesh - ideal subjects for the machine to work with. The Corporation decided to mount a review of the PATS machine in January 1977 at Muresk, WA, and of the CSIRO machine at Geelong, Victoria. Further funding would depend on the results.
Although I had maintained a casual interest in these developments, my own interests lay elsewhere. Apart from an active teaching programme, I had consulting contracts, and an interest in learning about the newly appearing microprocessors - computers in single integrated circuits which had occupied whole rooms just a decade before. However, the Corporation had requested an independent technical expert from The University for their review, and I was asked. I accepted eagerly.
In January, the PATS machine arrived at Muresk. Roy Leslie was diverted from his work to help Jim Brown set up the machine. It seems astonishing to me now that the first Australian Merino sheep was tried only days before the review date. Major surgery was required (to the machine) to allow the long neck of the Merino to be accommodated. Further adjustments were needed for the body too, with the result that the first shearing took place just the afternoon before the reviewers arrived. The next morning, it was apparent that there was a mismatch between the cutter and the comb - a slightly wider Australian comb had been fitted by mistake. Fortunately there were suitable alternative parts available to allow standard Australian combs to be fitted.
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September 1997