Food delivery robots offline after bomb threat at Oregon State University
Officials at Oregon State University issued an all-clear on Tuesday afternoon following a bomb threat involving Starship Technologies food delivery robots.
The university sent out an emergency alert at roughly 12:20 p.m. local time and urged those on campus not to open the robots and avoid them until further notice, according to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. The university’s public safety team and robot technicians responded to the situation by corralling the robots to “a safe location.”
The campus allowed normal activities to resume on campus about an hour after the initial alert, but staff continued to inspect robots in an isolated location, according to a thread on X.
“A student at Oregon State University sent a bomb threat, via social media, that involved Starship’s robots on the campus,” Starship Technologies wrote on X Tuesday afternoon. “While the student has subsequently stated this is a joke and a prank, Starship suspended the service. Safety is of the utmost importance to Starship and we are cooperating with law enforcement and the university during this investigation.”
Starship Technologies began service on the Oregon State campus in 2020 with a fleet of 20 robots, according to KOIN-TV.
The San Francisco robotics company posted on X earlier this month that its robots service nearly 50 campuses and more than one million students nationwide.
