You can place these in front of trees in your base, and it will collect wood and thatch, then after the tree respawns, it will collect wood and thatch again, until it starts to get encumbered and stop. Then, you can collect your resources from its inventory, and it will start automatically collecting again.

You can also place these around bushes, and they will "gather" to make the bushes despawn, but they will gain nothing in their inventory.