A new autonomous robot designed for food delivery has been wandering University of Idaho’s campus in its test run. The full launch of a fleet of robots is estimated to arrive in late spring.
The Starship delivery robots will be able to deliver both hot and cold items within a four-mile radius of UI’s campus. These delivery robots are designed to travel in both rain and snow and can go up curbs.
A single Starship robot has been traveling across campus during its test drive, a mystery to students.
“I thought it was very weird, but that’s because I didn’t know what it was” freshman Jaycen Forell said.
Other students have had similar experiences. Junior Maddison Bucholz said that she first encountered the robot while walking her dog with her boyfriend.
“I honestly thought we had a robotics program that I didn’t know about,” Bucholz said. “That’s cool, it’s just roaming around the campus.”
The autonomous robots are a program by UI’s dining partner, Chartwells. These bots will offer customers delivery through the Starship app, bringing food straight to students on campus.
“Right now, it’s just roaming the campus, measuring and taking distances and mapping the campus, so it can learn it surroundings,” Auxiliary Services Marketing Director John Kosh said. “It’s driving around, figuring out where the buildings are, what the best pathways are, safe distance and shortest routes of distance.”
When people will be able to begin using these autonomous robots is up in the air at the moment. Kosh is optimistic for a late spring start and people can expect 20 of the robots to be available for service.
“You order on the app, the order comes in, the food prepared, we put in the robot and the robot will drive it to a designated area outside your building where you’re at,” Kosh said. “It will then ping you and let you know that your food has arrived. You’ll go outside, we’ll have a special code for you to unlock it and you’ll take your food out. You enjoy your food, and the robot will drive back to wherever it came from.”
This remote handling provides the ability to have contactless delivery, as cases of COVID-19 are back on the rise. Kosh stated that these robots are a solution as another curbside delivery service.
“I think it could help a lot, especially with COVID right now and not having the human interaction would be really helpful for some students,” Bucholz said. “I think the only thing that I could see is a problem if it messes up.”
Kosh stated that the robot is equipped with 12 cameras, GPS and radar to be able to cross streets and avoid obstacles. The robot can also ask for help in cases that it does get stuck.
Recently a caller reported to the police that the robot got stuck on Taylor Avenue and Blake Avenue.
“These robots are moving at only four miles an hour, but that doesn’t take a long time to get from the ISUB to the engineering building,” Kosh said. “That’s a lot quicker than a drive-thru and getting it back to your place.”
Daniel V. Ramirez can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @DVR_Tweets