‘Do Not Open Robots’: Students Warned of Food Delivery Robot Bomb Threat at Oregon State University

Oregon State University warned students not to open any food delivery robots on campus due to a bomb threat on Tuesday. 

“Urgent OSU Alert: Bomb Threat in Starship food delivery robots. Do not open robots. Avoid all robots until further notice. Public Safety is responding,” the school’s X account posted at 3:20 p.m. An emergency alert was also posted to the school’s Public Safety web page. 

Roughly 30 minutes later, the account posted that the school was “remotely isolating robots in a safe location.” It said that campus police were investigating, and advised those on campus to “remain vigilant for suspicious activity.” After another 20 minutes, the school stated in a post: “robots are being investigated by technician.”

A spokesperson for OSU told Motherboard in a statement that no bomb was found, and the school’s actions were taken out of an “abundance of caution.” In addition, the individual who is believed to have called in the threat was arrested.

“All food and beverage orders were immediately cancelled once the threat was received, and refunds were processed via the original payment method for each order,” the spokesperson’s statement said.

“A student at Oregon State University sent a bomb threat, via social media, that involved Starship’s robots on the campus,” a spokesperson for Starship told Motherboard. “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 was founded in 2014 and runs its robot food delivery based service in several college campuses in the United States, including the University of Texas Dallas, the University of Mississippi, and Oregon State University. The university’s website explains how students, teachers, and visitors can use the service to get meal deliveries at various locations around campus. 

“The robots have mapped the campus using GPS and can find locations using a combination of machine learning, artificial intelligence and sensors,” a video about the robots from The Oregonian said.

The Starship robots previously went viral in 2022 when a man in Northampton, UK took a picture of one of the robots seemingly lost in the woods. 

Starship did not immediately return Motherboard’s request for comment.

Update: This story was updated with comment from an OSU spokesperson.

Update 10/25/23: This story was updated with comment from a Starship spokesperson.