It seems like the future has arrived – and it is in the form of coffees getting delivered with the help of drones – in the city of Bonython, Australia. “Won’t the coffee spill in the air?”, “do robots make the coffee” – you are wondering. “Won’t the coffee cool out?” – more and more questions arise. The truth is, there are so many questions about this new service.
The first thing we need to clarify is that drones are actually the carriers of coffee, delivering the hot cups of coffee to people located anywhere in town. The initial point is an app called the Wing App where you can order the coffee.
For now, only a select group of people in Bonython can order form the app (about 160 households) as the system is getting tested. The ‘testers’, however, said that the company is doing a great job with this drone trial.
One of them was Sam Saint who is a fitness instructor and has trouble packing her small children in the car while driving to coffee shops, putting her kids in trolleys and walk up just to get coffee. As Sam believes, this system makes residents of Bonython “the early adopters of a new technology” and Canberra a great place to trial such life-changing technology.
Kickstart Expresso is the name of the company that first decided to trial a coffee drone delivery system, getting involved in the trial and learning how to respond to orders, pack the coffees safely and attach them to allocated drones.
For your information, the drones are not operated by pilots – they are self-flying and use GPS to deliver safely to the front of homes. Literally, a drone flies over the horizon at 130 kilometers per hour, delivering coffee in a new system that sounds like a high-pitched whirring.
Made of similar foam as the one present in bicycle helmets, drones like these are sturdy and efficient – as well as designed to not spill coffees. As the first testers responded, the coffee is still warm and does not spill.
A drone can carry up to 1.2 kilograms which is two large coffees or two burritos at a time. So, if you have friends or family around and are from Bonython, you should expect this technology to deploy very soon.
For more information check out Project Wing.