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TECH THURSDAY

Drones roll out for hungry NAU students as pandemic spurs delivery tech trends

Posted 8/13/20

It may not bear repeating, but the novel coronavirus pandemic is transforming everyone’s daily lives.

Technologies and approaches once viewed as gimmicky or niche have suddenly (and …

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TECH THURSDAY

Drones roll out for hungry NAU students as pandemic spurs delivery tech trends

Posted

It may not bear repeating, but the novel coronavirus pandemic is transforming everyone’s daily lives.

Technologies and approaches once viewed as gimmicky or niche have suddenly (and necessarily) moved squarely into the mainstream.

This trend is evidenced by the explosion of interest in home-delivery services generally and in robotic ground delivery services specifically.

At the end of March, as the enormity of the public health crisis came into focus, industry experts were signaling a sea change.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce touted the ascent of home delivery phone apps in a March 30 report.

“For as many people among us who are panic-buying toilet paper and toothpaste (and flipping out at the sight of empty shelves), there are thousands who are skipping the in-store experience altogether and shifting to delivery apps for everything from groceries to lattes and lunches,” the chamber’s report states.

Citing data from industry analyst Apptopia, chamber officials reported a record-breaking spate of home-delivery app downloads, presumably spurred by the COVID-19 outbreak.

“Apptopia’s data suggests that the surge in downloads may prove fruitful. Their report found that March 15 was a new record for Instacart, Walmart Grocery, Shipt and Target that represented an increase of 218%, 160%, 124% and 98%, respectively, over the average number of daily downloads in February,” according to the chamber’s report.

Another nascent delivery app — which first launch commercially in 2017 and set up shop in Flagstaff in 2019 — is making a big slash at university campuses across the country.

A year before the outbreak, officials at Northern Arizona University announced a partnership between campus food service provider Sodexo and Starship Technologies, a San Francisco-based startup that has deployed small, autonomous delivery vehicles designed to feed hungry, homebound students.

“Through a partnership with Sodexo and Starship Technologies, NAU is now the second university in the nation to introduce a fleet of more than 30 robots that deliver meals and snacks from on-campus restaurants anywhere on campus,” university officials reported in a March 25, 2019, release.

The restaurant rover stands about 18-inches off the pavement on a six-pack of durable plastic wheels — looking something like a futuristic beer cooler. The drones have a shiny black-plastic lid and red-flagged antenna to maintain wireless communications and enhance visibility as they wend their way through pedestrian traffic.

Tooling about on sidewalks, the robots shuttle food orders from a variety of nearby eateries, including Einstein Bros., Star Ginger, Cobrizo Mexican Grill, Turnip the Greens, G’s NY Style Deli and The Wedge Market and Pizza, according to university officials.

“The robots, which use sophisticated machine learning, artificial intelligence and sensors to travel on sidewalks and navigate around obstacles, have already journeyed more than 150,000 miles. They navigate campus at 4 mph, look both ways before crossing a street and are built to keep the food they are transporting secure and at safe temperatures,” officials stated.

Before launching at NAU last year, Starship tried out their new toys at George Mason University in Fairfax City, Virginia.

Since then, they’ve expanded the Sodexo partnership to serve students at Purdue University in Indiana, University of Pittsburgh, University of Wisconsin, University of Houston, University of Texas at Dallas, University of Mississippi and Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Surprise resident turned Flagstaff coed Melody Steele said she has grown to depend on the robot-delivered meals during her first year on campus.

“I sometimes order breakfast, and I’ve ordered a lot of coffee,” Ms. Steele said. “I’ll get small snacks while studying or dinner if I am staying up late because of school.”

She said during her first semester, she ordered from Starship at least 50 times.

After downloading the app onto her smartphone, she registered using her university ID. Payment options include credit, debit and campus dining dollars. Once the order is placed, the robot is designed to only unlock its cooler lid for the right person, Ms. Steele explained.

“You register for an app through your school ID and put in your payment info and then whatever restaurants are available will prepare your meal and send it to your location in a little robot that only you can open,” she said. “When you’ve collected your delivery, you send your robot back to wherever it came from. At NAU, that’s usually the Union.”

After the order is placed, the customer can map the robot’s progress across campus through the phone app and receive an alert on arrival.

Ms. Steele said her other android-delivered favorites include pizza, pancakes, steak dinners, smoothies and juice drinks, sushi, hot wings, tacos and quesadilla, as well as pastries and other baked snacks — everything the would-be English Lit major needs to fuel her studies.

For the convenience, students at NAU pay a $1.99 delivery fee per order.

And the dutiful, little robots never ask for tips.