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7-Eleven Drone Delivers Chix Sandwich And Slurpee
A world-shaking, history-making order for Slurpees, a chicken sandwich, donuts, hot coffee, and candy was filled by drones.
“This delivery required special flight planning, risk analysis, and detailed flight procedures ensuring residential safety and privacy were equally integrated,” Chris Walach, the director of operations for the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS), said in a statement. The NIAS is a Nevada government-backed non-profit autonomous vehicle advocacy group that helped oversee the delivery.
Predicted by science fiction? You bet. Consider this flying robot waiter - a serving robot - from H. Beam Piper's 1962 novel Space Viking:
Via Fortune.
What makes it remarkable is that the convenience store chain used a drone to deliver the order to a family in Reno, Nev., 7-Eleven said on Friday. The company partnered with drone startup Flirtey for the delivery, which the companies said was the first time a drone has legally delivered a package to a U.S. resident who placed an order from a retailer.
As they sat down, he aimed his ultraviolet light-pencil at a serving robot. Unlike Mardukan robots, which looked like surrealist conceptions of Pre-Atomic armored knights, it was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor on its own contragravity; as it approached, its top opened like a bursting beetle shell and hinged trays of food swung out. The boy looked at it in fascination.
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