By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Starship robots made themselves right at home on the first day the autonomous food delivery system operated on the Bowling Green State University campus.
The view from the second floor of the Bowen-Thompson Student Union was of the picnic cooler shaped vehicle maneuvering around the walk ways and students leading to the east side of the building.
There they lined up in evenly spaced row waiting. Runners emerged from the building, and pop their tops and place in the order so they could send the Starship robots on their way to a customer somewhere else on campus. The customer will unlock it using the app.
Starbucks was the first outlet to use it with others joining throughout the week. Deliveries will be available from dining facilities and almost all the other eateries on campus.
This is the first campus in Ohio to offer the service. It is the ninth campus in the world where Starship Technologies is operating.
Hanna Sipos, the Starship launch manager, said that Chartwells and BGSU “are known innovators so partnering with them has been very exciting.”
Mike Paulus, BGSU dining director, said the company has deployed the services at the University of Texas campuses in Houston and Dallas. “When we saw the reliability, the execution and student satisfaction we just decided we had to have it here first at BGSU.”
He made the presentation to the university staff two weeks ago and within a few days robots were on campus mapping the territory.
And those robots got a lot of attention. Students were taking photos of them and posting them on social media. “Right away,” Sipos said, “they were downloading the app. … They market themselves.”
That excitement is not unusual. On other sites, families have visited campus just to interact with the robots, she said. Kids will even pet them. “Robots receive a lot of love.”
There are 30 in the BGSU fleet. They know how to deal with street signs and crossings — worldwide they have crossed 5 million roads. They can handle all variety of terrain and weather.
Sheri Stoll, BGSU’s chief financial officer who oversees food services, said she was convinced of their durability upon learning that early on they were used at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she went to school.
If a robot gets stuck it will power down and contact a remote human controller who will help it navigate the situation. “The human can take control of the robot at any time,” Sipos said.
Paulus said during a demonstration in Houston, the BGSU visiting team saw a student helping a robot negotiate a five-way intersection. They wondered where in Houston the intersection was. It wasn’t in Houston, or Texas, it was in Berlin.
Paulus said that the robots learn from every situation they encounter, and at night they will download that information to the rest of the robots.
They’re not the only ones learning from the project.
BGSU President Rodney Rogers said that students are bring employed to manage the system.
He was speaking coincidentally at the State of the Region conference. The theme was “Developing Tomorrow’s Workforce by Embracing and Investing in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.”
This was just one way the university is making that theme a reality.
Rogers said later that no university money was being used in the robot delivery system.
There’s a $1.99 delivery fee, Sipos said. Customers can pay for their order using a variety of means including Venmo and their meal plan accounts.
She said in previous locations there’s been a growth in breakfast business. Speaking as someone who was recently a college student, she said, students often skipped that first meal of the day.
Using Starship they can sleep late, rush off to class and have coffee and breakfast delivered to their classroom building.
Paulus said that more than 100 orders from Starbucks had already sent out on Starship before 11 a.m. and the lines at the student union shop hadn’t diminished.
“I see us growing our business,” he said.
The service aims for delivery in 15 minutes to an hour, but that’s system wide and includes some sprawling campuses.
“This campus is small,” Sipos said. “It’s brilliant. The BGSU campus is kind of like robot heaven. It’s flat and compact. … That means if you order on this campus it will reach you quickly.”
And when it arrives and the food is removed, the robot will even say “thank you,” then add, “Ay Ziggy Zoomba.”
