In order to limit the number of students racing down to the school cafeteria for lunch, the SFUSD has decided to add Robot servers to be able to help pass out lunch quicker and more fairly, to try and limit the rush of people. The district is willing to spend a decent amount of money on these, as each robot costs $16,000.
At Galileo, interim principal Mr. Punjabi has purchased 10 robots to serve the hundreds of students who race to get lunch at school lunch each day. Principal Panjabi believes they are well worth the money. He says, “I think it was a great investment because now we can guarantee that students get school lunch fairly and they won’t have to rush to the cafeteria to get food.”
Students who rely on school to get lunches in their stomachs everyday are also overly excited about the prospect of getting these robots. “I think these robots will make getting school lunch less of a rush and the lines will be less crowded which is a relief because I wait at least 15 minutes into lunch to wait for the lines to clear,” says Junior Arhjay K. Fellow junior, Alma L. added, “I think it’s amazing that I won’t have to rush to the cafeteria now that these robots make sure that everyone gets lunch now.”
The school staff echo the excitement of the students as they won’t have to supervise the lines of the cafeteria as much anymore and it makes sure that all the students who rely on school lunch get food in their stomachs.“The student lines will be a lot easier to monitor now as people won’t be rushing to get lunch or cutting in front of lines to be able to get lunch faster.” Says Security Guard Jacky L.
The robot servers will work like how servers at restaurants work. Students will sit down at the tables in the cafeteria and robots will go up to the students and show options for the school food. Once the students order the food that they want the robot will get the food and serve it to the students. For the students who won’t be able to get seats the robots will still be serving students at the cafeteria windows.
Even though the robots are very beneficial to the school lunch problem there are some potential downsides of having these robots serve students, such as some students tagging or trying to deface the robots wasting Galileo’s funds into these robots or they might malfunction and stop working as with all electronics. Principal Panjabi says that“we will try and make these drawbacks as minimal as possible with continuous check up on the robots and a school rule about not drawing on these robots.”
