The ultimate dream for many of us is burritos, instantly, whenever we want them. But that’s tricky to do, for a multitude of reasons. Still, that won’t stop Google and Chipotle from attempting to make it happen with the burrito drone.
A pilot program between Chipotle, Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Virginia Tech will see a food truck on VT’s campus arrive with lots of drones. Students will put in their orders, and the burritos will wing off to those waiting hungry stomachs with the ability to both fly and hover, lowering the burrito down with a winch.
As silly as this might sound, this is a quite serious test of the idea of local-area delivery by drones, something we’ve talked a lot about but have yet to actually implement in a wide scale. It is, in fact, the most extensive test of delivery drones ever attempted in the U.S. The goal is to prove that we can fill the air with drones safely, that they won’t slam into each other or spill food on people, and that swarms of drones can be operated autonomously without issues. In other words, this might end with burritos falling from the sky into the unexpected laps and hands of students, who, after dodging the drone wreckage, can enjoy a free burrito. So even if this ends poorly, somebody wins.
(via The Verge)
