Robotics is bigger than ever before with many companies doing their damndest to make workforces for anything from driving to deliveries. Despite general negativity towards robots and the possibility of them taking jobs from people, many weren’t ready to be charmed by a delivery bot that was lost in the woods.
In the age of delivery drones it’s quite surreal seeing a poor delivery bot getting lost. How the poor little thing ended up wandering alone hasn’t been answered but it has become quite a hit with those on social media. Even we want to see the little bucket of bolts reach its goal and then drink a cup of oil after.
Lost delivery robots meet humans in the woods
Matthew McCormack, a history professor at the University of Northampton in England, stumbled upon the lost delivery bot on Lings Wood Nature Reserve. The professor took a picture of the poor lost delivery bot and sent it to social media, resulting in the moving toaster becoming a viral hit with many.
“It’s kind of a bit sci-fi, you know?” McCormack told BuzzFeed News. “It was like kind of R2-D2 or something just wandering along.”
Regarding the social media reaction, McCormack was happy that it got such a positive response from everyone. “The reaction to it has been uniformly sweet,” he said. “Everyone’s saying, ‘Oh, you know, Pixar should make a film,’ or that it’s kind of like WALL-E or something.”
Those hoping that the two would become friends and have a quirky adventure with character arcs coming full circle will be disappointed. McCormack says the robot took off not long after the photo was taken, so we’ll never know if the lost robot in the woods had a name.
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Plot twist! It wasn’t actually lost
Despite a social media post saying that he “saw a delivery robot lost in the woods,” McCormack admits he took some liberties saying it was lost. McCormack admits that the nature reserve where he met the little bot is filled with houses, so there’s a good chance this robot was simply taking the scenic route to its destination.
Henry Harris-Burland, vice president of marketing for Starship, has confirmed that this poor lost delivery bot did not lose its way at all. “We appreciate everyone’s concern about our delivery robots but this robot isn't lost, it’s on a delivery to a customer,” Harris-Burland says. “Our robots can traverse a variety of terrain and take the safest and most efficient route possible on every one of the 10,000–15,000 autonomous deliveries they complete daily. In this case, that route happened to be a paved path through a wooded area in Northampton, UK.”
There’s little doubt that Harris-Burland’s statement is correct but many of us were hoping that it was legitimately lost. Maybe it’s all the Disney movies that we’ve watched but it would have been nice if the robot purposefully got lost to enjoy nature and all the things Earth provides. Once again, that’s the Disney inside us, but it would have been a lot of fun.