Hungry students, locked-down adults, and folks who just want to stay home. All of those people like the little autonomous robots that deliver food for Starship Technologies.
But kids are feeling sorry for the little white six-wheeled delivery machines.
They are feeding them bananas.
In the English town of Milton Keynes, the word has gotten around that the robots are hungry for bananas. Different kids have been observed feeding the robots at least five separate times.
"Robots are not hungry for bananas really," says Ahti Heinla, a cofounder of Starship, told Business Insider.
In 2018, pedestrians were kicking the robots, so the contact has become more generous.
Starship's battery-powered delivery robots are ubiquitous in the UK and on campuses in the U.S. and parts of Europe.
Starship robot deliveries have soared from 5,000 in 2017 to 1 million in January 2021. Among its most popular product deliveries are bottles of milk (105,000), pizza (63,200), coffee (43,000) and, of course, bananas (40,000).
