People Are Weirdly Captivated By University of Houston’s Food Delivery Robots | Eater Houston

"Recently launched a robot-based food delivery service that deploys a fleet of short, rectangular Starship robots to cart snacks and groceries across campus. A TikTok post by Blake Messick—soundtracked with the X-Files theme—showed the robots roaming widely and went viral (about 947,000 views on TikTok and another roughly 500,000 on Twitter), and other clips compared the machines to the Disney character Wall-E. At least 30 robots, developed in partnership with Chartwells Higher Education, began operating last week to deliver groceries and late-night eats from vendors such as Panda Express, Cougar Village Market, and Starbucks. A Change.org petition (nearly 100 signatories) has also circulated proposing the addition of vintage wire Cadillac “swangas” with pointy “elbows” to the robots as a tongue-in-cheek way to fold them into Houston car culture." - Amy McCarthy