What a time to be alive — for students at George Mason University, at least. According to TechCrunch, autonomous robots will soon begin delivering food and drinks to students, faculty, and staff (a total of 40,000 people) within 15 minutes or less.
Able to carry up to 20 pounds of food at a time, the robots can deliver from places like Blaze Pizza, Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, Second Stop grocery, and more.
Delivery isn’t free, but it’s relatively cheap at only $1.99. Beats walking across campus at 3 a.m. for a slice, right? Plus, students will have the option to use their student dining plans.
The robots are being deployed by Starship, an autonomous delivery robot startup, in partnership with Sodexo, a food and facilities management company. This isn’t the first time Starship had dabbled in the delivery business. PC Mag reported that the company started delivering food in early 2017 thanks to partnerships with DoorDash and Postmates. In March that year, robots also began delivering Domino’s pizza across German and Dutch cities.
World’s largest fleet of autonomous delivery robots launches on @GeorgeMasonU Campus today in Virginia USA. 40,000 students, faculty and staff will have access to the new service with retailers Blaze Pizza, Starbucks, Dunkin’, Second Stop grocery and more: https://t.co/fpRAenhEEl pic.twitter.com/6c5amyacdY
— Starship (@StarshipRobots) January 22, 2019
“University dining programs are evolving their strategies to meet this generation’s elevated expectations, such as better quality, variety and service delivery,” said Sodexo CEO of Universities East Jim Jenkins in a press release, per TechCrunch. “George Mason University’s culture of innovation and early adoption makes it the perfect campus for Sodexo and Starship to introduce this cutting-edge technology and enhance the campus experience for the entire school community.”
Lex Bayer, Starship’s CEO, said one of the benefits of the robots is that they help cut pollution and traffic. “They’re not putting fossil fuels into the atmosphere,” Bayer said, Fast Company reported. “It’s one of these things that if you step back and think about it, right now, we have other services in the world with a human being and a 3,000-pound vehicle driving a burrito around to deliver it to a person. And that model just doesn’t make sense.”