I was following the robot for about five minutes.
There is a four-wheeled vehicle on the campus of Howard University in Washington, DC. The robot was confused by the display on the front that had a pair of cartoon eyes.
The robot repeatedly stopped, turned around, and went back to where it started. It was scared to cross the street when it reached the intersection. Instead, it turned around and headed back to the beginning.
A woman on a scooter picked up a confused robot. I told her that I had recently ordered a muffin for robot delivery. The robot is made by a company calledKiwibot. It had to cross the street to get my muffin. The woman sped off on her scooter with the robot in front of her.
She put my muffin in the robot, put the robot back on her scooter, and took it across the street again. The robot made its way to my delivery point and I was able to get the muffin.
This wasn't a viable business at the moment. Humans are supposed to be saved by robots.
Another company seems to be further along. I went to Fairfax, Virginia, two weeks before my Howard visit, where dozens of robots were delivering food. I was able to get one of them to deliver me a donut without any problems.
The George Mason robot is from a startup. Ryan Tuohy, the company's chief commercial officer, told me that the company has doubled the size of their robot fleet in the last two years. The company is planning for rapid growth.
Tuohy told Ars that he's allowed to expand as fast as he can because of the unit economics. We know what the next campuses are. It's a matter of machines coming off the line to hire people.
When companies say they are on the verge of large-scale commercialization, I am skeptical. I think he is right after seeing Tuohy's robots in action.
I think there will be a lot more college campuses with Starship robots. I think technology like this will be available off-campus over the next decade or two.
I like to try new technologies on my own whenever possible. This gives me a better idea of how a service works.
The results couldn't have been better if I'd taken this approach. My robot arrived in about 10 minutes after using the Starship app. I had to wait more than 30 minutes to get my muffin because I was confused by theKiwibot app.
A lot of people were getting robot deliveries while I was at George Mason. At the north end of the campus, there is a plaza with a panda Express, an Einstein Bros. Bagels, and a Manhattan Pizza. Employees came out to put food in the robot at least three times, as each restaurant had a line of robot waiting outside.
Several George Mason students were talking to me. The person told me that she used the service to order food. During the lunch rush, she said it can take longer to deliver.
There wasn't any evidence that people were using the robot at Howard. None of the Howard students had used a delivery robot. Some students didn't know it was an option.
I followed a couple of the Howard robots to see if they could deliver. They were just driving around aimlessly.
I sent two follow-up emails this week after sending an email to a representative of the company. I was unable to speak to anyone at the company by the time I wrote the story.
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