Automated delivery systems

Saw this the other day:

Which looks pretty cool.

A design for an automated delivery system… little robots that run around in their own specially built conduits and deliver standard-sized packages etc.

This sort of thing has been around for years – I can remember department stores in the 60s having pneumatic systems that fired money / receipts + change to and from cashiers and a central accounting office up on another floor. There was also one that Wellcome Institute used to have in London back in the 80s… little programmable briefcases that ran around a this little railway track that went round the building.

There’s quite a lot of infrastructure that would need to be built though… and it did occur to me that instead, they could use existing infrastructure… I’m talking about sewers. Shitbots. What could possibly go wrong?

Shitbot Pirates, that’s what. There would be these internecine robot-war style skirmishes between the robots (and the ones above weight 84 kg? Holy crap that’s heavy) and thief-bots, all covered in crap etc. People would do it for fun. And profit. I can’t wait.

No. These things need to be above ground. In daylight. Transparency is everything. It’s a good idea though… transport needs to be redesigned I think. At the moment if I want to buy an LED, it takes about a ton of steel and a van driver to deliver it. Barmy.