Minnesota Campus Rolls Out Food Delivery Robots

We all have our social media drug of choice, and mine happens to be Reddit. While I have avoided the major ones like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat for some reason I am impervious to the pull of Reddit.

One of things that caught my eye this week came from the r/uofmn page, where a Redditor asked "There are security bots on campus now?"

There are security bots on campus now?
byu/Soft-lead inuofmn

As it turns out, they are not security robots but rather a food delivery service called "Starship" that takes food from restaurants and delivers them to your doorstep. Starship says they have delivered over five million orders since its launch in 2014.

KSTP Eyewitness News says there will be ten autonomous robots on the campus of the University of Minnesota. There are three restaurants inside Cauffman Memorial Union that will participate in the company's test run, with their food being delivered to other East Bank buildings on campus.

The robots are intentionally heavy to deter theft and, if someone tries to lift, tip or otherwise tamper with the robot, a loud alarm will sound to act as a deterrent. In addition, the robots are tracked via GPS 'to the nearest inch.'

Other colleges with Starship include Southeast Missouri State University, New Mexico, Prairie View A&M and Cal Poly.

The Starship Technologies website says their zero-emission robots make 'over 150,000 road crossings every day,' and that they have completed more deliveries than any autonomous delivery partner.