Starship Technologies, a food and package delivery company, announced it would be supplying US college campuses with a new fleet of food delivery robots this September.
Starship’s eco-friendly six-wheeled robots can already be seen on at least 20 campuses across 15 states. But this fall, 85 new robots will join them and operate at:
- The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC)
- The University of Kentucky (UK)
- The University of Nevada, Reno (UNR)
- Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida
With this, the company will further boost its already impressive 1.5 million daily deliveries.
But how does robot-powered food delivery work?
Students will need a special Starship Food Delivery App that will allow them to order online, track the order, and pin a delivery spot for the robot. Once the delivery is complete, they will unlock access to their order using the app.
To make the transition from traditional to robot-based delivery smoother, the company plans to hire students to aid in implementing this new technology.
However, Starship Technologies is not the only creator of autonomous tech used to replace the traditional ordering of food.
Yandex and Grubhub will also be partnering to bring cost-effective, robot-aided deliveries to University grounds, but on a much bigger scale (250 US campuses). On top of that, Sodexo will operate with Kiwibot robots to provide deliveries for three US universities.
The food chain brands will undoubtedly benefit from these partnerships and the new delivery type that enhances their cost-effectiveness, perhaps even driving meal prices down.
Whether robot delivery will endanger other top meal delivery services or aid them remains to be seen.
