Our friend “Officer Barbrady” sent us this picture with the following text today:
Saw this a few minutes ago near Four Corners in Concord (Monument Blvd./Meadow Lane). There were two, each followed by a bicyclist with a high visibility vest. I asked the Amazon guy and he knew nothing.
So we’ve ruled out anything to do with Amazon, so what else could it be?
Anyone have an answer for us?
Yes! I always see this around the area and haven’t been able to figure out what it is.
Pee Wee Herman on the bike, and the other is Mr Potatoe Head with 4 wheel drive option kit.
I saw this today coming from Systron & Donnor and it cross over Monument Blvd. I had never seen one before either. What is it?
Some type of new autonomous vehicle?
That looks more like Monument Blvd/Systron Dr. I have seen another thing like that before but I forgot where. Hopefully that has something to do with surveying road and safety conditions or getting Street View to have pedestrians’ vantage point.
That looks like Monument and Systron. I’ve seen it in that area a number of times, also up and down Detroit. I assumed that it was testing self driving vehicle capabilities, since the people on bikes just seem to follow it, they don’t interact with it at all.
That looks more like Monument Blvd/Systron Dr. I have seen another thing like that before but I forgot where. Hopefully that has something to do with surveying road and safety conditions or getting Street View to have a pedestrian
Most probably Systron Automotive – inertial navigation— theta what they do. Why not ask them?
Personally, I’ve used two different devices in their realm. I would guess that they are developing inertial and optical gyros.
The goofy childish look belies the smart technology under development.
But what do I know?
Why doesn’t someone pull up near the guy on the bike and ask him some questions? Don’t know how to do that?
I did, the guy told me it was mapping routes and still being tested. Perfect that it is always on Detroit, Laguna & Ellis streets……those apartments will all be locked down hard for the next “pandemic”, these vehicles will be what delivers to them.
That’s exactly what I did…of course without sarcasm. They are a start up company based out of SF. They are simply surveying roads in this area. Pretty much a bunch of engineering students. They built these contraptions themselves.
They are testing for the autonomous food deliver for like grub hub or Uber eats. The guys on the bikes are there supervise and or take over of it gets stuck.
Mike…I just spoke with them this morning. Not the case.
There is a Doordash store on Systron Drive – Im thinking maybe it has something to do with that ?
I saw it, then it stopped at DMV and 30 çlowns got out of it.
I believe that they refer to themselves as “public officals.”
I believe its for Dashmart (doordash) they have been testing autonomous “vehicles” for a few years on Systron, San Miguel and Monument.
When I first saw these, a year or more ago, I estimated these were intended to be small food delivery vehicles for restaurants and shops. I have only seen them near Systron, on both sides of Monument, half a dozen times or so. Plenty of time has passed and I have not heard of any local automaton food service being available (not that I am on top of this kind of news), so the last few times, the cynical side of me is beginning to think these will be mobile cameras, kind of like visible sentries monitoring some of these areas with high density populations near small isolated industrial parks. Bottom line is, I have no idea. Even did a very very brief look to see if I could learn anything, but came up empty.
That is a prototype R2-D2…
Beta# Q1-C1
I think it’s a food delivery robot for pizza, deli etc.
You are all correct on the location…the building in the background is Systron Donner. (now called Emcore)
Tony Cox comes to Concord!
Did Little Tikes develope this?
It’s the Concord PD bomb dismantling vehicle. They wanted it to look less foreboding than prior models.
It looks like it was built by Playskool.
…. Battlebots are taking over! 🙂
It goes up and down Detroit all the time. Daily even. Used to be a bare metal box on wheels and they followed it with two people on those segways they switched to the rad motorized bikes makes me think they are going longer distances. No idea what they are.
My wife’s grandson attends Ole Miss and there is an entity that operate similar devices around campus. They refer to them as “Starships”. It is utilized mainly for grub delivery. They are autonomous and operate at equiv of human walking speed.
The one in the photo is unattractive compared to the design of the “Starships” – the “Starships” are all white and do operate autonomously. There is no human escort.
You found my Fisher Price autonomous kid transport!!!!
There must be a company in Concord that develops robotic delivers. This is not the first one .
Looks like Gerry Brown’s new ride. Just big enough to tow some solar panels.
These are the future of Doordash delivery. They will eventually phase out the contracted delivery drivers.
The Doordash convenience store, “Dashmart” is located at 2727 Systron Dr Suite 300, Concord, CA 94518 and a separate space in the same building is rented out for these robots.
Someone will stick on a set of “antennae” and paint little insect mouth parts on it sooner rather than later.
I don’t know if they’re the same ones but there are two of them that cruise Commercial Circle off Bates Ave almost every day around noon.
be on the lookout for my escaped nephew again
concord PD might arrest you for having fun. don’t do that there.