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I have met the Walmart order pickup robot (the so-called Pickup Tower [1]) - it has convinced me that well-designed robots are inevitable. In general, it has ma

I have met the Walmart order pickup robot (the so-called Pickup Tower [1]) - it has convinced me that well-designed robots are inevitable. In general, it has made package pickup a pleasure for me though I admit that in the early days, it required some employee assistance. I have picked up many tens of packages from this facility at my local-ish Walmart and it has been wonderful. By comparison, the previous manned package pickup scheme was almost always a nasty experience: non-working 'buzzers', long waits, 8pm close up times, and other unnecessary nonsense. I used to dread picking up an order at Walmart before the Pickup Tower became available and now go out of my way to go to a Walmart with this pickup tower vs. going to a closer location with the ring-and-wait-around-like-a-flipping-fool package pickup service. [1] https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/innovation/20180405/hundreds-more-high-tech-pickup-towers-are-headed-your-way https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/innovation/20180405/h...

OnlineGladiator 7y ago
I have not been, but how is this different from lockers with electronic locks? I don't consider that anything resembling a robot.
- abawany 7y ago
  There are two aspects to the pickup tower: 1) Entering/scanning an order number causes the robot to fetch the packages (plural) in question and deliver to an area for the recipient to pickup. This has the effector/sensors that you mention above. 2) Entering/scanning an order number causes the robot to tell the recipient to go to a given locker and it also pops open said locker. When the recipient picks up the packages from the locker and closes the same, the main screen acknowledges the pickup. If I appear to be gushing, it is because I am darned impressed by this thing. I am not kidding when I say that it works very well. I found a video that hopefully demonstrates the technology better than my stilted write-up above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71pgd-LzzXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71pgd-LzzXc .
  - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    Ah, the video helps explain it. At first I only saw pictures of the overflow lockers. Well regardless of whether or not it's a robot (I would argue it is), it passes the most important test: it does something useful and users love it (going by your testimony as a single data point)!

OnlineGladiator 7y ago

I have not been, but how is this different from lockers with electronic locks? I don't consider that anything resembling a robot.

abawany 7y ago
There are two aspects to the pickup tower: 1) Entering/scanning an order number causes the robot to fetch the packages (plural) in question and deliver to an area for the recipient to pickup. This has the effector/sensors that you mention above. 2) Entering/scanning an order number causes the robot to tell the recipient to go to a given locker and it also pops open said locker. When the recipient picks up the packages from the locker and closes the same, the main screen acknowledges the pickup. If I appear to be gushing, it is because I am darned impressed by this thing. I am not kidding when I say that it works very well. I found a video that hopefully demonstrates the technology better than my stilted write-up above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71pgd-LzzXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71pgd-LzzXc .
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  Ah, the video helps explain it. At first I only saw pictures of the overflow lockers. Well regardless of whether or not it's a robot (I would argue it is), it passes the most important test: it does something useful and users love it (going by your testimony as a single data point)!