CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Starship Robots are making waves on the UNC Charlotte campus, all while upgrading the Niner food experience. 

Dining services at UNC Charlotte is partnering with Starship Technologies to get robots on the campus. Now, they're able to deliver meals, like Bojangles', to hungry Niner students. 

Computer-vision based navigation helps the robots get around campus safely. 

"At first I was very puzzled but very happy to see them though because they're very cool looking," said UNC Charlotte student Soen McCormick. 

Ben Kolnos is the senior retail director for Chartwells Dining Services at UNC Charlotte. He ensures dining services are running smoothly.

Kolnos says the robots are maximizing the student experience. 

He says his department has always been focused on ways to make meals easily accessible for all students campus wide. The dining team found a way to do it after COVID-19 hit by way of delivery. 

"With the pandemic, we obviously knew we wanted to give a safe delivery option," Kolnos said. "So we started out with having students deliver meals with golf carts. That was mildly successful. But we wanted to take it to the next level." 

So, dining services partnered with Starship to enhance its delivery options by launching the Starship Robots on the Niner grounds.

"The university and Chartwells realize that technology really is the wave of the future. We have to do that to keep relevant," Kolnos said. 

Nearly 30,000 students attend UNC Charlotte.

Kolnos says the robots represent how the university is keeping up with its growth to meet the greater food needs.

"We [also] want to make sure their health is in mind. So with these food delivery robots, it's a safe way to get food brought to you," Kolnos said 

The university started off with 19 robots. Kolnos says dining services will add more robots to the Niner family this fall.