The Starship robots don’t wait for the press.
To mark the expansion of the service off campus including to downtown Bowling Green, the Starship Technologies robots made a scheduled delivery to the Bowling Green Police Division at the corner of West Wooster and Church streets. Time of delivery for the coffee and doughnuts from Dunkin’ Donuts was 9 a.m.
But by 8:45, the robot could be seen heading east of Wooster on its way back to campus.
Leaving a press scrum behind, and a couple reporters yet to arrive.
The Starship robots, which made their debut on campus in early March, now are able to deliver food to students and community members from Panda Express and Dunkin’ Donuts. The robots also deliver from Carillon dining facility and its convenience store.
John Zachrich, director of marketing and communications for BGSU Dining Services, said the roll out to the community has gone smoothly. He’s heard from friends in the community who have used the service. One family had a dozen doughnuts and hot chocolate delivered to their home. “It’s a fun thing.”
It’s especially useful in a time when people are needing to stay close to home.
He said he didn’t have sales figures yet for the first week.
The robots, which can scoot along at 4 mph, should take about 45 minutes to get the furthest location on their route, a bit over a mile from campus.
It all depends he said, on the number of pedestrians and vehicle traffic. There was little of either Friday morning, and that accounted for the speedy delivery to police headquarters.
“It’s always a little bit of a learning curve ,” Zachrich said. “As the robots keep going through the community, they learn more.”
What an individual robot learns about its routes, it then shares with the rest of the fleet at night when they’re recharging.
The robots, Frankrich said, are “designed for safety first , 100 percent. Safety is biggest priority.”
That means they may take a while at a crosswalk. The problem may be it doesn’t have the timing of the light down or a vehicle is pulled further into the intersection than it expects. If the root gets hung up it can summon help from remote operators on duty around the world.
Those operators can look – at the streetscape from the robot’s view, and send it instructions to help it get on its way.
The robot later made a delivery to the Fire Division at the East Court Street station. View BGSU video.
– David Dupont
