BROOKINGS – Starship Technologies rolled out its robot food delivery service Monday on the South Dakota State University campus. SDSU became the first campus in the state of South Dakota to implement robot food delivery service.

Starship’s fleet of 30 autonomous, on-demand robots will deliver from three campus eateries – Grille Works, Papa Johns and Starbucks – to start. Additional locations will be added soon.

The school’s nearly 14,000 students and faculty can use the Starship Food Delivery app to order food and drinks from local retailers to be delivered anywhere on campus within minutes. 

The service works in conjunction with students’ meal plan. The delivery fee is $1.99 plus 10% of the order, similar to other food service deliveries like Doordash and Uber Eats.

“The one thing we have learned in recent years is that students and faculty like flexibility in their dining options,” said Doug Wermedal, associate vice president for student affairs at SDSU. “The ability to have something delivered to various locations throughout campus and the community will be impactful to our students and employees as they continue to manage busy and demanding schedules. We are excited about this partnership, the robotics technology and the student employment opportunities Starship will bring to our campus.”

Starship is already providing services to about 20 campuses across the country, including Arizona State University, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, George Mason University and Northern Arizona University. Since launch, all campuses have increased the number of robots, dining options and hours of operation to meet the high demand for the service. 

“One of the things we have been working on for a long time is some answers to the labor shortage we’ve experienced with other food service sites, but also offering students some employment with advanced robotics,” Wermedal said. “This is kind of a two-birds-one-stone response. The campus has more than 31 miles of sidewalk over 500 acres, so it’s important for us to look for ways to make sure the food service gets delivered conveniently to staff and to students and this is one of our answers.”

Wermedal said they have had a tough time fully staffing some of SDSU’s food service sites, so each robot in use will be one less person in line and one less person using in-person staff at the point of sale. 

“So when the robot delivers, there’s a little more staff left over to be allocated to the persons getting their food right on-site,” Wermedal added.

The small, six-wheeled robots travel at an average speed of 4 mph. The delivery area will span from Ninth Avenue to Jackrabbit Avenue and Seventh Street to 18th Street.

To get started, users open the Starship Deliveries app, choose from a range of their favorite food or drink items, then drop a pin where they want their delivery to be sent. They can then watch as the robot makes its journey to them, via an interactive map. Once the robot arrives, they receive an alert and can then meet and unlock it through the app. Users get a range of time that the robot will deliver, as the time can vary depending on the amount ordered, distance to travel and traffic at crosswalks. The robots will wait until the street is clear to cross, which can take a while during busy times on campus. Each robot can carry up to 20 pounds – the equivalent of about three shopping bags of goods, including both food and drinks. 

“We’re excited to make our South Dakota debut at SDSU,” said Ryan Tuohy, senior vice president of business development and sales at Starship Technologies. “The winters can be tough here, so we know the students, faculty and staff will appreciate the robots delivering their food and drink orders. We look forward to providing this convenient service and becoming a part of the campus community.”

Starship Technologies has been in use on the campus of UW-Madison since 2019, signaling that the technology is well-equipped to handle winter weather, including snow fall. As a measure of security, the robots have cameras and a security system. Once the robot arrives at its delivery location, the person who ordered will scan a barcode that will allow them to open the robot and get the food that they ordered, making transactions secure.

“(This technology) adds a sense of security, especially with the pandemic,” Fausto Lopez, a site launch specialist for Starship Technologies said. “You can get your delivery straight from the merchant straight to you. There’s no other person that touches it. The robot will deliver it for you.”

Starship Technologies operates commercially on a daily basis around the world. Its zero-emission robots have made more than 2 million autonomous deliveries, traveled millions of miles and make more than 90,000 road crossings every day. The robots use a combination of sophisticated machine learning, artificial intelligence and sensors to travel on sidewalks and navigate around obstacles. The computer vision-based navigation helps the robots to map their environment to the nearest inch. The robots can cross streets, climb curbs, travel at night and operate in both rain and snow. A team of humans can also monitor their progress remotely and can take control at a moment’s notice. Starship hires a team of student workers on every campus, giving them real-world experience in AI and the future of transportation. 

At SDSU, a team of students who are advanced in their robotics majors will supervise the fleet of robots, Wermedal said.

The Starship Food Delivery app can be downloaded from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/starship-deliveries/id1278308166?mt=8 for iOS systems and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xyz.starship.deliveries&hl=en_US for Android.