Starship Technologies, a provider of autonomous delivery services at US college campuses, is to provide deliveries from on-campus restaurants including Starbucks, Panda Express and Subway at four additional locations.
The University of Illinois Chicago, University of Kentucky, University of Nevada, Reno and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Daytona Beach, Florida campus join the list of college campuses where Starship robots provides deliveries with its fleet of over 1,000 robots.
Starship’s delivery robots began its autonomous delivery services at George Mason University in Virginia in January 2019. The service is now available across nearly 20 different campuses in 15 states.
Starship Technologies’ zero-emission robots have made more than 1.5 million autonomous deliveries, travelled millions of miles and make more than 80,000 road crossings every day.
Alastair Westgarth, CEO of Starship Technologies, says, “We’ve worked hard to become a trusted and integrated partner on our campus communities and that hard work has paid off. We are continuing to add new schools every semester, with more to be announced this fall. The students love the robots and the schools appreciate the ability to offer this service. We can’t wait to meet the students at each of these schools and look forward to hiring students on all of the campuses to give them real world experience working with robots and AI.”
Dean Kennedy, executive director of Residential Life, Housing and Food Services at University of Nevada, Reno, adds, “Everyone wants to resume in-person classes and be back on campus so we’re doing everything we can to make sure it’s done responsibly. The robots offer several advantages – they make social distancing easier, they are convenient, the students we have spoken with love this idea and they continue our heritage of being an innovative campus.”
“I never thought I’d be sharing sidewalks with a robot when I thought about going to college but they feel right at home with the coming age of innovation and technology,” says Johan Restrepo, a student at Embry-Riddle. “It seems really futuristic yet completely normal at the same time. It’s always fun to see them travelling around campus and having the option to get food delivered is a huge bonus that my friends and I can’t get enough of!”
