New food-delivery robots come to Cal Poly
AV Ride robots ready for deliveries across from the Taco Bell in Poly Canyon Village. Photo by: Gabby Gerster / Mustang News
Cal Poly is partnering with AV Ride to bring new Grubhub robots to campus.
In fall 2024, Cal Poly Dining partnered with Starship Technologies and Grubhub to bring food-delivery robots to campus.
As of June 2026, Starship Technologies left the higher education industry. Starship offered a transition plan for the 2026-2027 school year for all schools that previously partnered with Starship, according to Starship’s website. However, Cal Poly Dining used this as an opportunity to bring newer technology to campus.
After looking at other partner options, Cal Poly Dining decided AV Ride best fit for Cal Poly’s campus, according to a Cal Poly Partners Director of Commercial Services, Russell Monteath.
Cal Poly has many hills and crosswalks without signals or traffic lights, which made it difficult for the old robots to get to students, he said.
The new robots are fully funded by Cal Poly Partners. Monteath said that their hope with the new robots is that food gets delivered in half the time the Starship robots did.
“The move to new robots really starts with our goal of providing convenience to students and giving them time back in their day,” Monteath said. “Robot delivery is one of the ways we can do that by making it easier for someone to get a meal when they may not have time to walk across campus.”
Maren Thorpe, a food science sophomore, found the previous delivery robots to be useful.
“Last year when I was sick a lot, it was so nice to have a robot come to me and I didn’t even have to think about it,” Thorpe said.
Thorpe said she is likely to use the new robots this year because of her past positive experience with the robots.
A new feature AV Ride has is the Light Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR-based, driving system, meaning they can see shapes, sizes and how fast things are moving. So, if a robot gets stuck at a crosswalk without signals, it can still get across safely. The AV Ride robots will also be larger, leaving more room for food, according to Monteath.
“I think the old robots definitely had issues,” said Gabrielle Roche, a political science sophomore and 1901 Marketplace employee.
“They had trouble staying on route. Sometimes a robot was supposed to be at our restaurant but got stuck somewhere on its route,” Roche said.
Joella Denovi, an experience industry management sophomore, recalled when she helped one of the old Grubhub robots stay on track.
“I was just walking near the pickleball fields, and there was a random robot stuck on the curb and so we had to lift it up and put it back on the curb,” Denovi said.