Starship Technologies, a worldwide leading provider of autonomous delivery services, and Sodexo Inc. announced a series of milestones and exclusive giveaways to mark five years of autonomous robot deliveries at George Mason University (Mason).
Mason was the first university in the U.S. to offer autonomous robot deliveries provided by Starship. Since the launch on January 22, 2019, Starship’s robots are now serving more than 1.1 million people across 50 U.S. college campuses as well as in local neighborhoods in several other countries. Mason Dining and Starship offered giveaways, such as exclusive anniversary swag, Starship promo codes and Mason Dining merch, at select merchants last week to celebrate the milestone.
At the time of launch, Mason had the world’s largest fleet of delivery robots on a college campus. That initial fleet of 25 robots has now more than doubled to 60. In addition, the merchant locations have increased from 4 to 18.
When Starship started service at Mason in 2019, its robots had completed 25,000 deliveries and traveled more than 150,000 miles. Today, the global fleet of more than 2,000 robots has completed more than 5 million deliveries and traveled more than 7 million miles. Mason students can now customize their robot delivery with characters and songs. Mason is also the first campus to implement wireless charging to increase utilization and efficiency.
The most popular item ordered since launch: The Original Double ‘N Fries from Steak ‘n Shake (15,779 times). Mac & Cheese was ordered 3,236 times in 2023 and took the lead compared to what had been the overall most popular item. And, February 16 was the busiest day in 2023 with 857 deliveries.
“Starship robots are an important part of daily campus life at Mason,” Roshonda Alexander, retail general manager at Sodexo, said in the announcement. “We took a bit of a risk five years ago when we introduced the robots but we haven’t looked back since. The technology was embraced by our students and faculty as well as our merchants. We’re all about making lives easier for our students. The robots have done that and provided a fun technology that just makes people happy.”
Chris Neider, VP of business development at Starship Technologies, added in the announcement: “It’s hard to believe that we’re already celebrating five years of service at Mason. As our first campus, we were very happy to partner with a school like Mason that wanted to innovate and bring this new technology to their community. We were surprised at how quickly the robots became such a beloved part of campus while also seamlessly integrating into campus life. They really help set the stage for all of our campus success that has developed and we are very happy to be celebrating this achievement.”
