A popular video online showed a University of Louisiana at Lafayette maintenance truck turning right onto Rex St. from E St. Mary Blvd. and striking a Kiwibot that was crossing the street. The bot flipped over from the impact, but was not run over by the truck. Behind the camera, the recorder jokingly said, “I just witnessed a murder.”
The in-person reaction to the collision and the overall student response to it proved students noticed and cared for the four-wheeled robots that are constantly bustling around campus. In rain, sleet or snow, a UL Lafayette student can count on a Kiwibot to be somewhere rolling around campus.
The delivery robots first came in January 2023 and have since become a noticeable part of the campus culture. Franklin Caldwell, a sophomore majoring in business management, described his feelings towards the Kiwibots,…