At the Cooper Hewitt Museum on the top floor is an exhibit on the future of technology in the world including vehicles and city planning that will be efficient and better for the environment and the people living in it. The piece from this exhibit that is related to my system of Street Food Vendors in New York is this little delivery robot. Inside the robot is insulation used to keep the food inside fresh. Though this system, food deliverers will become obsolete and it is possible that food vendors will also be hurt by this invention too. This allows for food delivery to be more efficient because you don’t need someone to pick up your food and you can send this robot to any location you please. It is also safer from people who might eat the food because it may be possible to have some sort of lock function so that it can only be opened by the restaurant sending out the food and the customer who bought it. This system may take away jobs from food deliverers but it also might be safer for them because most people that deliver food do so by foot or by bike and in New York City this can be very dangerous with multiple orders. I think this delivery robot would be interesting for people to own as well. Maybe if they’re going on a picnic, they can bring this robot that will follow them to their destination and this way if someone spontaneously wants to have a picnic, they can order food and send the robot to them wherever they are.
In terms of the relationship between the robot and street food vendors, I think initially it will be seen as negative because people will have yet another way to prevent the need to step outside to get food. Convenience of the robot might win over the price and speed of waiting and paying at a street cart. However I think it is possible to have a positive relationship as well. Maybe the vendors can have a robot of their own and people who want the street food can order from the cart and the robot can deliver allowing for the cart owner to reach more customers while still not leaving the cart unattended. Or the robot can deliver ingredients and supplies so that the owner can watch over the cart.
Overall I think this invention is really interesting and had a lot of potential not only in big cities but also in more remote ones too.
