At George Mason University, they provide food to students: NPR

At George Mason University in Virginia, a fleet of dozens of autonomous robots deliver food to students on campus.

Patrick Madden / NPR

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Patrick Madden / NPR

At George Mason University in Virginia, a fleet of dozens of autonomous robots deliver food to students on campus.

Patrick Madden / NPR

The George Mason University looks like any other large university campus with its tall buildings, student accommodations and manicured green lawns – with the exception of robots.

This University of Northern Virginia has recently implemented dozens of Starship Technologies meal delivery robots to facilitate student access to food.

Several universities across the country have deployed delivery robots, including the Pacific University in Stockton, CA and Northern Arizona University, but George Mason University is the first university in the US to incorporate robots into its program meal for students. The school is working in partnership with food service provider Sodexo for the program.

"We were surprised by the volume of orders we had when we activated the service," said Ryan Tuohy, senior executive at Starship Technologies. "But what's really touching is the way students on campus have adopted the robots."

The student Grace Pereira-Plaza says she finds the robots "pretty lovable" and that she was initially obsessed with them – taking pictures, taking selfies, dressing them for the holidays. But they are slowly getting used to it.

"We find it's normal now, seeing them go by, it's like" oh, they're here, "Pereira-Plaza says.

How it works? Students can place an order via an app for any restaurant that is part of the program. The cost is $ 1.99 per delivery. Then they wait. The goal: a 30 minute delivery. And just like Uber, students can watch the vehicle follow him, 4 miles to the hour.

The robot is equipped with nine cameras and ultrasonic sensors to navigate the surroundings. Humans are still needed to place food in robots and can monitor them from afar to intervene in case of a problem. But these are self-taught machines that can adapt.

"They work according to algorithms that, if they see a student start on the road, will be right behind them," says Mark Kraner, head of the school's retail operations. "So they learn and it's fun to watch them evolve."

Sometimes there are unforeseen problems. At the University of California at Berkeley, one of his delivery robots caught fire. And for George Mason University, on the first day of deployment, the robots had so many orders that school officials had to temporarily shut down the system.

But overall, they are an asset to the school. Starship Technologies and Sodexo found that these robots had helped more students to have their breakfast. According to a press release, 1,500 additional breakfast orders have been delivered autonomously since the beginning of the program.

And while students at this university now expect to see the robots daily, for the rest of us, it may take some getting used to.

NPR Claudette Lindsay-Habermann and Andrea de Leon have produced and edited this story for broadcast.