Polite delivery robot thanks couple who free it from icy street

A tiny delivery robot showed good manners when “politely thanking” a couple who helped free it from an icy pavement.

Graham Smith had spotted the food-delivery robot struggling to find a way up a curb in Cambridge on Tuesday.

He and his partner Sybil Crisford immediately came to the machine’s aid and gave it an encouraging push up the curb.

It then took them both aback by saying "thank you, have a good day", before rolling away.

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Smith, from Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, said: "I saw this poor little mite trying to negotiate a high, slippery kerb in Chequers Close earlier today, wheels spinning like crazy."

He added: "Should it have been let out on its own in these weather conditions? It didn't even have a scarf!"

His post about the bot on a local Facebook group attracted hundreds of likes and dozens of people sharing their concern for the bot's wellbeing.

The Starship bots have charmed residents of Cambridge, with their polite manners, singing and adorable light-up flags over the autumn after they were rolled out across the city.

The machines, known as “grocery badgers”, deliver groceries to residents and can be seen lining up outside supermarkets to take orders.

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The bots use sensors, artificial intelligence and machine learning to navigate, but this week's icy conditions may have scrambled their abilities to read the terrain.

A spokesperson from Starship said: "The robots make more than 140,000 road crossings every day around the world, nearly one every three seconds.

"Most of these crossings are done autonomously, but on the rare occasion assistance is required, the robots can be monitored remotely.

"It’s also true that every now and then the robots are not shy in asking a friendly resident for help, particularly in a new area they’ve recently started mapping."