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Universities accommodate food delivery robots
- newsclues 3y ago[flagged]
- hristov 3y agoOrdinary corruption. Administrators at universities are paid decent but not very high salaries and yet the university itself is often a very powerful institution. So administrators are always looking to use the power and influence of the university to get themselves some lucrative side gigs.
- jgalt212 3y agoThe students are not the customer. The bureaucracy is the supplier and the customer. Yale Now Has More Administrators Than Undergrads Thanks To A Mammoth Bureaucracy https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/11/yale-now-has-more-administrators-than-undergrads-thanks-to-a-mammoth-bureaucracy/ https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/11/yale-now-has-more-admin... https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2021/11/10/reluctance-on-the-part-of-its-leadership-to-lead-yales-administration-increases-by-nearly-50-percent/ https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2021/11/10/reluctance-on-the-...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Animats 3y agoWhatever happened to Starship robots? I used to see them driving around Redwood City occasionally, around 2016. There was always a "minder", a human following along about 50 feet back. They were around for only about a year, and deployment never happened locally. So they pivoted to working on college campuses?
- foobiekr 3y agoEvery now and then you notice one stuck in Mountain View on Castro Street through Covid period. The whole idea always struck me as absurd and an example of how VC malinvestment was being driven by ZIRP and outright lies about autonomy by a lot of people with a vested interest in keeping the money train going.
- Kinrany 3y agoCompared to self-driving cars, delivery robots are easier to accommodate to the point of actually becoming economical.
- big_whack 3y agoI see basically zero chance of consumer delivery robots being economical. Self-driving cars also have a low chance of panning out IMO -- it will not take many more incidents to kill the industry -- but if self-driving cars did pan out it would at least be a service I would use. In contrast to SDCs, the delivery robots I have seen are bulky and take up a lot of sidewalk space. In contrast to delivery people, they don't climb stairs. If they did climb stairs, I don't want to be stuck behind one. As with SDCs, most people hate these things. I think if they were humanoid-shaped it would help with some issues (take less space, climb stairs) but introduce other issues (less carrying capacity, far more complex/expensive). The only consumer-facing robot I've seen so far that solves a problem in my life, is the Roomba+competitors. I'm pretty skeptical that consumer robotics will be a big part of the future.
- foofie 3y ago> Compared to self-driving cars, delivery robots are easier to accommodate to the point of actually becoming economical. Seeing how delivery companies abuse labor laws and take advantage of undocumented immigrants to perform their service, I'd say delivery robots are a far more ethical solution as well.
- dheera 3y ago> delivery robots are easier to accommodate to the point of actually becoming economical Delivery robot co-founder here (Robby.io, YC S16). The economics are actually really, really hard. 1. A Honda Civic costs $24K. It's actually surprisingly difficult to build a sidewalk-sized robot for less than $15K if you include labor for assembly and if you don't have scale. And it isn't compute and sensors. It's everything else -- plastic, metal, structural stuff, crimping wires, motor mounts, gaskets, all of that. The form factor isn't something that is mass-produced already. 2. They can only deliver MAXIMUM 2km, anything beyond that the food gets cold. Even 2km is a stretch, customers complain of cold pizza. A lot of the existing human-driven delivery market comes from further deliveries, because you know, if you can walk to the restaurant you might actually be willing to take that walk. 3. Real estate for robot storage is a HUGE cost issue in the bay area. Rental warehouses are not cheap in Mountain View. And in places where rent is cheap, people tend to also be less busy and not need food delivered. 4. Teleoperation is also a huge cost. Full autonomy on sidewalks is not difficult, but dealing with human issues at stop signs and intersections is a very difficult issue to solve. 5. Getting restaurant staff to be willing to walk outside the restaurant and drop food into a robot is an issue. The current state of many restaurants is that they just put orders on a shelf and delivery drivers walk in and pick them up without intervention. They just don't have the staff to deal with a robot that can't come inside. Requiring staff to find the food, walk outside, find the right robot, and drop it in would be a regression from their point of view. All this stuff adds up, quickly.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago[flagged]
- justrealist 3y agoUniversities spend an absurd amount of money on ADA compliance. The University where my father teaches tore down an office building mostly because it was too difficult to get an ADA-compliant elevator installed.
- KennyBlanken 3y agohttps://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/as-higher-ed-goes-digital-ada-compliance-falls-behind https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/as-higher-ed-goe... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/30-years-after-americans-disability-act-college-students-disabilities-say-n1138336 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/30-years-after-american... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9565787/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9565787/ https://www.levelaccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/how-higher-education-is-failing-students-with-disabilities.pdf https://www.levelaccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/how-h... But I'm glad your anecodote about an unnamed school "tearing down a building because they couldn't make the elevator ADA compliant" refutes all that. Try talking to students who are in wheelchairs about their challenges getting to class, housing, food services, etc.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LegitShady 3y agothe only reason I think food delivery robots have a place is because they don't need to be tipped to be happy.
- orenlindsey 3y agoSeems like a solution looking for a problem. We don't need food delivery robots, people are happy to do the same thing (just look at Uber eats, DoorDash, postmates, etc). And since the robots already charge you a delivery fee, you may as well pay that money to an actual person rather than a company.
- rsynnott 3y agoWhile I’m very sceptical of these robots (it’s basically self driving cars all over again; roads are harder to use than people think), you could make a decent argument that the ‘gig economy’ stuff is a product of the financial crisis recession and its depressed labour market; as major economies have returned to functionally full employment, the economics have become ever shakier.
- apwell23 3y agoyou don't have to awkwardly wait behind the door for delivery person to leave after dropping of your daily chicken nugget order.
- sandworm101 3y agoOr you can be cordial and great them at the door. Food delivery has been a thing for decades. I don't like that people treat other delivery drivers so differently just because they are part of an app ecosystem rather than employed by a particular restaurant.
- lobsterthief 3y agoI sometimes order delivery when I’m not in the mood to interact with other people. If I wanted to interact with someone, I’d drive the short distance to the restaurant.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- apwell23 3y agoi am just shy
- alaskamiller 3y agoOperated with food delivery robots for two years in a major downtown city area. City councils were excited but they can't accommodate as much as school councils though. Also fun fact, the robot companies are usually contracted and dealing with the food service providers to the college than to the college themselves.
- nerdbert 3y agoMy favorite detail in the article was about the intersection with beg buttons, where the robot people were trying to get the city to convert them to a properly functioning crosswalk that always showed a "walk" when the parallel road had a green light. If this is what it takes to get rid of beg buttons, I say let the robots spread to every corner of the earth.
- Solvate8441 3y agoAutomatic sliding doors and sidewalk ramps are also nice to have. It seems robot-friendly infrastructure is pedestrian-friendly infrastructure.
- TMWNN 3y agoMy apartment building has only steps leading up to the lobby door, which causes problems for deliveries and movers. I've thought of citing handicapped access as the justification for getting the property owner to put in a ramp.
- foofie 3y agoIt's disheartening how something as straight-forward as improving a town's walkability and reducing the threat posed by cars is framed as something evil that only a robot-wielding corporation corrupting officials would ever do.
- dheera 3y agoIn many cities the "walk" only shows when the cars have a green light AND a red no-left-turn signal, to protect pedestrians from getting hit by left-turning cars. In yet other cities and intersections cars in all directions are stopped and pedestrians in all directions are allowed to go.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoIt's peculiar, because traffic engineers long ago found several ways to automatically detect when a car is waiting at a red light and trigger the signal change, but they just can't seem to figure out how to detect bicycles or pedestrians who are waiting for the same event.
- alephnerd 3y agoWasn't this a thing at Cal like a decade ago? I vaguely remember trying to tip them over on visits to Berkeley. Also, big fan of the Computational Journalism Lab Dan!
- ortusdux 3y agoSeems like a great early adopter candidate for something like Peachtree Corner's system - https://cities-today.com/peachtree-corners-launches-first-underground-delivery-robot/ https://cities-today.com/peachtree-corners-launches-first-un...
- frantic2821 3y agowoah, there was a Canadian company called Tiny Mile (who have better cuter looking robots) that do the same thing, the city banned them and then they moved to Miami and are having success apparently? https://www.blogto.com/tech/2023/02/tech-startup-success-us-shunned-toronto/ https://www.blogto.com/tech/2023/02/tech-startup-success-us-... Looks like they also operate in NC like Starship, is it because of The Triangle? is the demand really that high there? I'm not surprised that universities push for these robots as they will also benefit. Curious if these robots can last through snow storms
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y agoI love these little guys. They've been rolling them out in major cities here for the last year or so, and every time I see one rolling by I get a smile on my face. This is what machines are meant for, to make our lives easier and more enjoyable. :)
- jj999 3y agoWait 'till these things bully pedestrians out of the sidewalks.
- tennisflyi 3y agoA top level comment is this actually helps with movement/ADA at the same time.
- croemer 3y agoI remember seeing a starship struggling to cross a road for minutes in Tallinn, Estonia, in Autumn 2019. Seems like nothing has changed regarding their inaptitude. > "Rachel’s order took 13 minutes to cross the street”
- workfromspace 3y agoAFAIK, most of the Starship robots in Tallinn are for training purposes, not actual delivery.