Starship Technologies' cute delivery robots could soon deliver breakfast to your desk

The robots have undergone a corporate campus trial, delivering food and office supplies to workers 
Amelia Heathman1 May 2018

Starship Technologies’ autonomous robots are on track to change deliveries across the globe: starting with office campuses.

The cute delivery robots have already driven over 100,000 miles making food and parcel deliveries for the likes of JustEat and Mercedes Benz.

Now, the technology is sophisticated enough that the robots are going to be available on corporate and academic campuses in North America and Europe.

How do the Starships robots work?

The zero emission robots can reach speeds of up to 4mph. 

The cargo bay, where the delivery item is kept, is locked throughout the journey, and can only be opened by the recipient via their smartphone. 

The bots are equipped with security measures including nine cameras to capture the faces of any troublemakers. 

Ahti Heinla, CEO of Starship, told the Standard, that this is going to be the first large-scale deployment of the company’s autonomous delivery service.

“We are now sure we have robots that are adequate and useful for the work. Customer satisfaction is high, the quality of the services is right, the robots work well.

"We’re at the point now where we have productised this for corporate campuses,” said Heinla.

Starship has been trialling campus deliveries at the Mountain View campus of Intuit, the business and financial software company, in California.

Robots are available for campus delivery via an app. Intuit’s employees have been using the robots to deliver their breakfast or lunch to them, as well as transport office supplies and products to other locations on the campus.

Wouldn't you love this little robot to deliver your breakfast at work?
Starship Technologies

Heinla said the robots have had an overwhelmingly positive response from staff at Intuit. On average, the little bots have taken around 17 minutes to deliver food, coffee or snacks, allowing the people on the campus to be more productive and enjoy their breaks, instead of standing in line.

“You can sit outdoors during your beak and use the app to have your lunch or snacks delivered to wherever you want, not just the building you work in,” said Heinla. “We’re offering people convenience and a chance to give back control of their time.”

In particular, Starship has found that the robots are most popular during breakfast time.

“When people get to work they don’t want to immediately queue up for breakfast, they want to get started with work. So it’s a perfect opportunity for the robots to deliver breakfast.”

A Starship robot on a delivery at Intuit's Mountain View Campus, California
Starship Technologies

At the moment, Starship doesn’t have any specific partnerships with corporate or academic campuses in the UK. However, Heinla said the company is in talks to roll out the robots in places around the country.

In total, the company hopes to deploy over 1,000 bots by the end of year.

“This is a very exciting moment in our mission to change how things move in the world,” said Heinla.

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