Request 034 — 2/3/2026

There has got to be a better use for robots than delivering burritos at 1 am

It’s Tuesday! Happy foiaday!

Happy mid-week, everyone! If you’re keeping track at home, we celebrated our one month milestone on Saturday and published a week five roundup yesterday (which was re-upped this morning, for folks who didn’t end up getting it last night).

I’ve already referenced the one month post loads of times as I’ve done housekeeping for foiaday and caught up on any requests that need to be refiled. While I, of course, have a color-coded spreadsheet for myself to keep tabs on things, I’m eager to get these requests (and semi-live statuses of them) into a more interactive interface than what it’s in currently.

Have any ideas, for that or otherwise? Hit my line! Reply to this email or send me a note at heycamrodriguez@gmail.com.

Anyway. Tonight’s blue-plate special: lukewarm Chipotle takeout served with a side of technological advancement and ennui, or records about those weird delivery robots on college campuses.

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Come on, you know the ones. No? These:

The company depicted here, called Starship, is working with 60+ universities, according to their website. Based on an impact report from 2025, it looks like the bots are used across 65 campuses in a majority of states, with Illinois currently spared — something that’s interesting, considering the publicized partnership between the University of Illinois Chicago and Starship Technologies in 2022. (Which, according to students, was mixed.)

We’ve got a good mix here of states, including some that I haven’t filed requests to… yet. Let’s take a peek at some press releases to see if we can find names of schools, maybe?

A news release from 2024 lists out five schools that added Starship to their dining programs: Cal Poly, Georgia Tech, Southeast Missouri State University, University of New Mexico, and Prairie View A&M.

Perfect! We have the company name (Starship Technologies) and five public universities — six, if you count UIC. Let’s request records about the contracts, bids and other docs (maybe complaints?) related to robotic delivery fleets, shall we?

- Data or documents sufficient to show all complaints filed about Starship Technologies, or Starship robots, on campus. Please include the date of the complaint, the body or text of the complaint, and any related or associated data fields that might exist. Please release data in a .xlsx or .csv format, or a list or documents in a .pdf format.

- Copies of all contracts, bids, memos, MOUs, payments, receipts or other documents showing the relationship between Starship Technologies ("Starship") and the university. If needed, please limit the search to 1/1/2022 to present (2/3/2026), and please release documents in a .pdf format if possible.

Then, for the schools I haven’t had the pleasure of requesting documents from:

- A log, list, document or data to show all records requests filed with this agency (like a "FOIA log") between 1/1/2024 and the present. Please release documents in a digitized format and include a description of the request, the date of the request, the name or affiliation of the requester and the outcome of the request. Please release the document in a .xlsx or .csv if possible, or a .pdf if not.

- The most recent records retention schedule for the agency, which includes a list of documents kept by the agency and for how long each record is retained. This may be called a general records schedule, a records index, or something else. Please release this in a .pdf if possible.

I’ve never had the distinct joy or confusion of having a delivery come via robot, and apparently Illinois schools are now robot-delivery-driver-less. Fingers crossed we get something piping hot with these records!

Okie dokie. Night everyone, and happy filing!

Cam