Are you missing out on thin mints in the pandemic? A Google partner uses drones to deliver Girl Scout cookies to people’s doorsteps in a Virginia community.
The town of Christiansburg was a testing ground for commercial delivery drones operated by Wing, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet.
Now the company is expanding the more mundane drugstore offerings, FedEx packages, and locally made baked goods, tacos, and cold-brewed coffee it has been moving to a sparsely populated residential area with the iconic boxed biscuits since 2019.
Wing said it started speaking to local Boy Scout troops because they found it harder to sell cookies when there were fewer people around during the pandemic. The organization has taken the new twist on its capability building mission.
“I’m excited to be part of the story,” said 11-year-old Gracie Walker of the Boy Scouts for Virginia Skyline Troop 224. “People will recognize and say,” Hey, this is better for the environment and me can just go outside in pajamas and get cookies. ‘“
It’s the latest attempt to spark public excitement for futuristic drone delivery as Wing competes against Amazon, Walmart, UPS, and others to tackle the many technical and regulatory challenges involved in flying packages across neighborhoods.
Federal officials began rolling out new rules in mid-April that will allow operators to fly small drones over people and at night, potentially boosting the machines’ commercial use. Most drones must be equipped so that they can be remotely identified by law enforcement officers.
The 10-pound wing drone that made its first deliveries in Christiansburg in the fall of 2019 is already an artifact kept at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Whether it will go down in history as a revolutionary innovation or as a utopian flop remains to be seen.
Amazon has also been working on the delivery of drones for years. In 2013, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in a television interview that drones would fly to customers’ homes within five years, but that deadline has long expired. The company received government approval to ship packages using drones last August, but Amazon said it was still testing them and has not yet started shipping goods to buyers.
David Vos, an aerospace engineer who led Google’s Wing project until 2016, said he was surprised that the delivery of drones hadn’t gotten off to a quick start.
“I thought it would be totally feasible to be operational by 2021,” said Vos. While still believing that drone technology is getting closer to providing the size, weight, and performance needed to safely move goods in populated locations, Vos said the tech industry is also a cultural one Needs change.
In particular, it should appeal to people from the traditional aviation industry who have experience in building “safety-critical systems” that meet strict performance standards.
The wing’s drones can navigate autonomously – without a human pilot remotely controlling them – and are powered by two forward propellers on their wings and 12 smaller vertical propellers. When a drone reaches its destination, it hovers over the lawn while a tether loosens to drop the package.
“It was so slick and it didn’t shake,” said Walker, who, before her squad added drones to their sales strategy, put on a mask and set up a biscuit booth in front of a hardware store. “You look like a helicopter, but also like an airplane.”
There isn’t much evidence that consumers have asked for drones to be delivered, and many have raised privacy, safety, or harassment concerns when asked to picture the noisy machines above their homes. Wing has objected to some of the FAA’s new drone rules on privacy concerns, stating that the remote ID requirement could allow observers to sniff delivery routes online.
In a small survey of researchers near Christiansburg by researchers from nearby Virginia Tech, which Wing funded, most townspeople appeared to be happy with the drones.
“One of the reasons is that Virginia Tech is here and there is an engineering culture to try new things,” said Lee Vinsel, an assistant professor of science, technology, and society who conducted the Virginia Tech survey. “And the on-site setup is easiest for drone delivery.”
This may not be the case in much denser locations, he added. “Manhattan would be tough.”
Matt O’Brien, The Associated Press
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