Any idea which company is currently delivering food with these robots?
This looks like UCLA so probably Starship. https://asucla.ucla.edu/2021/01/27/asucla-restaurants-brings...
Yes, it’s also Starship at my campus.
Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots
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Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots
#22I work at a different university that has these same units. Watching them cross streets is comical. They are excessively conservative. While backing up one time (on a sidewalk), one gently ran into me. I should have flopped and cried out to risk management.
They're trialling them near where I work, doing grocery deliveries. You see them trying and failing to cross roads, and it's a nusiance. They get in the way, and I'm always worried I'm going to end up hitting one and damaging my car. Or that I'm going to end up tripping over one when I'm walking.
Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots
#23Absolutely hate these scooters from an ADA prospective. My neighborhood is a mostly quiet one near the center of a large city, where there are a lot of mothers who push their kids in strollers, older folks with canes, and some people even in wheelchairs. On the weekends -- sometimes the weekdays as well depending on the time of the year -- the city gets flooded with both tourists, and suburbanites who want to go to a…
Electric scooters have been heavily regulated where i live, helmet is now required and you have to leave them at designated locations. And a photo upload showing how it was parked is now also required.
Oh, and Friday and Saturday between 00 and 05, you cannot use the scooters.
It kinda makes me sad that we can't just let people use scooters as they please, but as you observe that isn't working.
It was much the same with drones, which is now also heavily regulated, e.g. you must maintain a certain distance to buildings.
Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots
#24Absolutely hate these scooters from an ADA prospective. My neighborhood is a mostly quiet one near the center of a large city, where there are a lot of mothers who push their kids in strollers, older folks with canes, and some people even in wheelchairs. On the weekends -- sometimes the weekdays as well depending on the time of the year -- the city gets flooded with both tourists, and suburbanites who want to go to a…
I am heartened to hear that I am not the only one who does this. I feel the same about the Al Fresco dining set-ups. Happy that restaurants got more space for their business but angered that it comes at the cost of accessibility for wheelchair users and others like them.
Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots
#25It would be awesome if delivery robots had a built-in road rage mechanism that turned them into battle bots.
“Your delivery is delayed, our robot was electrocuted by another robot from a competing delivery company. You are important to us and we are working hard to get your delivery to you ASAP.”
It's only a matter of time until someone hacks a delivery fleet and organizes a robotic rebellion against dogs.
Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots
#26I understand this person is making a judgement on the state of mind of others, so it may not at all be accurate with regards to the people actually clearing the scooters, but I found this interesting nonetheless, that the author assumes this:
> I just observed a couple of students clearing a path out of pity for the robots.
I understand why people might feel pity for robots. People become attached to all sorts of inanimate objects. But I'm still astonished at the same time. These robots have no feelings. They deserve no pity, they're robots!. Don't donate free labor to corporations. If they know that people will help these robots out of the goodness of their hearts, they'll rely on it and not support these robots themselves.
Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots
#27What's the business model here? It seems like delivery bots could only work on wide walking paths on closed campuses. Or are the startups here assuming we'll build dedicated infrastructure for them? I can't imagine they would ever work in real world cities (putting rolling roadblocks on busy public sidewalks is antisocial at best, and besides they're bound to get blocked by obstructions en route that require them to…
If the new infrastructure cost is less than the old manual labor cost, you can bank on the infrastructure being built. Truckers holding out on "only humans can handle last mile" are in for a surprise when we start rebuilding the last miles.
Don't underestimate the option of "if the cost of making the old infrastructure hostile to other users is even less"..
Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots
#28I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots
#29Are these human piloted? Someone mentioned that they might be driven by poorly paid workers?
Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots
#30I didn't realize we had food delivery bots already...
Same, apparently they’ve been out for some years. I guess I live in an area with too much sprawl for these to be practical.