Starship Robots – Small robots that travel sidewalks for local delivery | Hacker News Reader

Starship Robots – Small robots that travel sidewalks for local delivery

starship.xyz

56 pointsjkaljundi53 comments

I would be very excited to receive items from one of these robots. However, I don't know if I could bring myself to send anything of import. The risk of en route damage/theft seems really high. The trapping or taunting of them seems like a surefire activity for children. Their contribution to already congested pedestrian routes in urban areas seems like a perfect catalyst for sidewalk rage induced kicks. If they were to commonly transport high value goods, theft would be a huge issue. A few hours to build a serviceable faraday cage and you have a drop and lift job that nets significant gains. Not advocated theft, but it seems a rather obvious risk.

Also, dogs rejoice! You finally have a catchable, chewable mail courier.

Edit: There also seems to be some potential security risks here. Some cities may not be keen on unmanned, arbitrary payload carrying robots driving through throngs of pedestrians. They are going to have vet the store operators and detect if a recipient fills a unit with unexpected items. Maybe that is just paranoia.

> If they were to commonly transport high value goods, theft would be a huge issue.

That was my first thought as well. Get a van and a sledgehammer and wait a few blocks away from their depot in the morning. Sure they could phone home, but what is the cost of maintaining a staff to protect the robots vs. just having the staff deliver things.

Reminds me of a friend who was a Marine Biologist. Their lab spent a lot of money to get an underwater probe that could go around and take automated readings based on a map. But the probe cost so much money that they had to follow it the whole time in a boat to make sure it didn't get lost.

>> If they were to commonly transport high value goods, theft would be a huge issue.

The first thing I thought.

> ...they had to follow it the whole time in a boat to make sure it didn't get lost.

This should be a great input for this company making these, actually solves the issue of theft. One robot, one person to follow it from a distance and make sure it does not get lost or, ehem stolen.

> This should be a great input for this company making these, actually solves the issue of theft. One robot, one person to follow it from a distance and make sure it does not get lost or, ehem stolen.

A one to one relationship doesn't seem like it would scale. They could make their operation centers mobile by outfitting vans or buses. That would allow for visual monitoring as needed, and quick responses to breakdowns/thefts/vandalism. As an added bonus, they could see a net savings on downtown office space as well!

Maybe it's more like this: a foreperson rolls up in a truck. Then a stream of about 20 of these fulla ciggies n beer loops through to the convenience store to drop it off. No heavy hand truck.

If they were commonplace, they could monitor each other. As soon as one is tampered with, others could be re-reouted to follow the perpitrators. It would be like having a mobile CCTV network.

My first thought also - I wonder what kind 'self-defense' mechanisms would be legal and/or effective.

It says on the website that the robots are monitored by humans , I think a human voice beaming from the thing saying "Hey, we're recording you messing with our robot" would be enough to deter 95% of potential attackers.

What about the other 5%?

"I wonder what kind 'self-defense' mechanisms would be legal and/or effective."

Maybe this thing will be followed by a weaponized drone (they tell me is legal in Pakistan).

As long as the items are low value like groceries, the other 5% probably wouldn't bother. They might be wise to impose a value or insurable limit, at least initially.

Theft/vandalism of robots themselves would be no less of an issue as well.

> If they were to commonly transport high value goods, theft would be a huge issue.

More so than normal deliveries? There's nothing stopping someone clobbering the USPS guy and emptying the van. At least with the robot it's only carrying one item and it can record the attack on its cameras.

> More so than normal deliveries? There's nothing stopping someone clobbering the USPS guy and emptying the van. At least with the robot it's only carrying one item and it can record the attack on its cameras.

People are a great deal more reluctant to attack other people. Most criminals are nonviolent.

I think the biggest risk at least in a city like San Francisco is people taking their anger out against "rich techies" on these robots. Look how riled San Francisco is right now, what with the perception that techies are causing all their problems. I am certain this would have to put up with an onslaught from these segments of society.

Just add video. Most people behave differently if they're being filmed. Transmit to a call center.

Here's my idea: As soon as it detects that it's being tampered with or stolen, it locks down and sends out a distress signal to a recovery team. It goes into "hostage mode" and records all sights, sounds, GPS locations, back to the team. The recovery team already has legal stuff figured out with the local police force, and they work together to retrieve the bot and prosecute the offenders, which should be easy with all the data collected.

That should be quite effective against most thieves, and building up a reputation for 100% recovery and prosecution would deter future thieves.

A faraday cage trap might be pretty tough to deal with though. Maybe it can emit annoying sounds if it detects it's being trapped.

Unless it is a safe, the thief could just drill into the battery.

Liability issues would be my concern. They device would need to record 360 video to prove it didn't cause an accident or injury.

I do see a use for delivery within an office building. Likely this might be the best way to get people accustomed to them. Simply have them operate in the office setting. Even better, connect to intelligent vending machines and they will go get you snacks, drinks, and more, all through the use of an app.

> Also, dogs rejoice! You finally have a catchable, chewable mail courier.

You, sir, gave me a hell of a laugh today :)

If package theft was a significant problem, Amazon would require signature on delivery for everything.

Hey I'm building this too! Doesn't quite look as high tech, but a Kinect + ROS + RC car + a basket goes a long way. https://medium.com/@TomPJacobs/self-driving-cars-now-in-mini...

Very Star Wars.

Seems perfect for deliveries around a large office campus where theft, maps, and smooth sidewalks are all very manageable. Though I don't know how much profit is in that market.

I think as soon as the robot is also able to fill the fridge by itself and even be cheaper than shopping yourself. It will change the world.

Btw, the core team behind this actually participated in the NASA's Sample Return Robot Challenge[1] two years in a row as Team Kuukulgur, before this venture.

Nice to see the produced know-how and technology being put to use in everyday-related product now.

[1] http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/centennial_challe...

Obviously useful for large, controlled environments. Large office buildings, Disneyland tunnels, intra-stadium logistics, movie studios, facilities like refineries or dams or whatever.

That's cool, I haven't thought about that. There's already similar ones in hospitals delivering simple items, I think.

I looked into building a similar robot, but couldn't overcome the challenges of crossing the street. You need some pretty advanced computer vision to follow stoplights, or worse, roads without stoplights. Stairs are also a problem. I hope they'll give a blog post detailing how they overcame some of these obstacles.

Here is a video from BBC which gives a lot more information https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xkp2J3D-fM

For instance, the founder mentions that the robot is expected to be remote controlled by a human in about 1% of the conditions which are deemed too difficult.

Also, they talk about the theft/vandalism problem. Like some here have speculated, the plan is to use loud speakers to say something like "What are you doing? The police will be here in 5min and we have you on video."

Personally, I dont know if it will work but anyway I think its a great idea. Maybe obvious in hindsight, but my mind is still blown when thinking about it.

Might work, if the cargo were somehow locked in. Maybe unlocks when scanned at the receive site somehow? To discourage casual theft.

I wonder how the economics work out? What's the cost of owning and maintaining one of these, versus a human courier on a bike? The page says it can lower local delivery costs by a factor of 5x-10x, which seems like a lot.

Brad Templeton, who is an advisor to the company, estimates these will be used for deliveries in about thirty minutes and for about one dollar.

As always, the people of HN have found the weaknesses in this product that the founders haven't thought of at all, and they will surely shut the whole thing down now.

I'd argue that the product page doesn't sell properly if everyone is freaking out over possible issues. If they've solved for obvious problems, they should discuss those solutions a little. Otherwise it's not much more than a fancy Big Trak.

The landing page is probably just for showing people that they're working on the product. Very few of the eventual consumers are going to visit the site in its current form.

The Starship Robots are really cool. The sort of stuff I dreamt of as a child after staying up too late reading Asimov by flashlight. If I found myself working on a project like that, I would be more than thrilled. I probably came off too negative in my first post. When presented with a machine out of a childhood dream, I was suddenly laden with the fear of reality.

It is a great idea, and I hope they execute it perfectly. The path they choose around the roadblocks will be the real magic.

Yes, dismissive comments are a problem. It is better to respond to new work with an open mind and to be constructive when criticizing. Still, posting another dismissive comment doesn't improve the thread.

More helpful would be including specific information about things like (a) what we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss; (b) what the founders have probably thought of; (c) how to post more substantively; or (d) how to criticize more constructively. Then we learn something.

You have a nicely sized full-height video on the page and cover the top of it with that dumb sticky header. There's only 1080px of content I can fit on my screen why steal that with a useless thick color bar. More fool me I suppose for still browsing the web fullscreen.

There's a team building, it seems, the same thing in partnership with DHL: http://www.sidewalkdelivery.co

Looks neat in a scifi sort of way, but I am not sure people would be too happy about having these things running around on already busy sidewalks.

One key advantage of automating this is that it could avoid the busy ones...

Something like this would work very well in places like hotels, Centre Parcs[1] or theme parks. However, I think that is a bit niche for what it's aimed at.

[1] http://www.centerparcs.co.uk/villages/index.jsp

They want to run pilots in the UK and US next year.

British pavements (sidewalks) have to be the ultimate test!

British pavements are a dream, you should come to Italy. Here is the 'pavement' on my walk home (the yellow pole is a bus stop): http://i.imgur.com/30ujPfb.jpg

I can't imagine these roaming around the streets of Birmingham, they'll just be picked up and dismantled for cash.

Yeah, British pavements should be fine, try somewhere like Thailand or Vietnam ..

> For security, the cargo bay is locked throughout the delivery and can be opened only by the recipient via the mobile phone

Or with a crowbar..

I watched the video, and it seems all it really does is spins in circles and turns the headlights on and off.

I wonder which cities have realistically good enough sidewalks/pavements for this to work consistently.

Could work inside a campus or industrial center? Maybe in the new Apple starship juggernaut.

What about stairs/raised sidewalks?

It looks like the rear wheels can moved up and down to give it more ground clearance for sidewalks.

I presume it only works in areas that are wheelchair accessible, and any areas it has trouble with (such as a flight of stairs in an apartment), it could notify the recipient to come and collect it.

The Daleks figured it out eventually, I'm sure these guys will too.

Seriously? Those things travelled millions of light-years but yet they were stopped by a flight of stairs.

Maybe they could use the same design as the stair-scaling wheelchair that was featured on HN few days ago?

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