Video: Watch new delivery robot service complete journey through busy part of Northampton

Starship Technologies' delivery robot service was launched on Thursday (February 18) at the Barry Road Co-op store, just off of the Wellingborough Road.

Customers who live within a three mile radius of the Co-op will be able to order groceries to be delivered by a robot on the same day.

This newspaper followed one of the robots to show our readers what a typical delivery journey looks like from start to finish.

To start with, a Co-op worker collects the items, which have been ordered by the customer via an app, and loads them into the robot. The bot then locks and can only be opened using the code the customer has.

When asked if the robots were taking away jobs, one of the Co-op workers said it is actually helping them with workload, increasing sales and likely to create more jobs, not less, in the future.

Once packed, the robot uses a combination of sensors, artificial intelligence and machine learning to travel on pavements and navigate around any obstacles towards its final destination.

It took around 15 to 20 minutes for the robot to get from the Co-op store to nearby Lea Road, as it took extra care when crossing the road, navigating humans and overcoming bumps in the pavement.

The Smith family were tracking the robot's delivery through an app, and once it was at their house they used a code to unlock it and take their items, which included Coca-Cola, milk and spring rolls.

The Smith family said: "We were just being lazy today! We would normally walk down to the Co-op. It's great. We were tracking it on the app. We are really pleased with it. The app was simple and we like that you can track it. Kids love them, too. It only cost us an extra 99p for it to be delivered."

The robot also gained a lot of attraction while making its way to the Smith's household. Passersby stopped to watch it cross the road, climb up kerbs and laughed when it used its speaker technology to say "Hi, I'm a Starship Robot" quite loud in the middle of the street.

One member of the public said it's good for disabled people and those who are vulnerable or self-isolating at the moment.

Another said the technology was "very clever". While someone else said they would like the robots to have names like Bob, for example, and added that the robots could help some people feel less isolated.

The robots have been in Wootton and Hardingstone since November and it has also been announced this month that they will be available from Upton in the future.