Value: Economic and Social

Our food delivery drones offer many potential values to its users. Students on a campus which has implemented our drone system will be able to receive food at much more convenient times without having to spend time walking. Although these were intended for big college campuses, the drone system could also be expanded to big company headquarters such as Google, Apple, or Nike.

 

Economic: The startup cost will be the largest cost because the drones would have to be purchased. The drones involve computer chips, propellers, and coding. It costs money to hire someone to write the code for the drone in its scenario. Also, the startup cost needs to cover materials. The operational cost would be rather low because that would only involve the fuel source. There is no other operational cost. Maintenance costs will be low unless there is detrimental damage done to a drone. A propeller or a sensor may need to be replaced after vigorous use and normal wear and tear but overall the drones should be durable. The drones should be self-sustaining because of low maintenance costs. They will be able to deliver large amounts of orders each day; this will allow them to bring in a large amount of revenue. An amount of revenue that exceeds any maintenance costs. Revenue will exceed repaying start-up, operating, and maintenance costs; therefore, the drone will not be subsidized.  OSU would be a major fee differentiator. Our drone implementation is based on the current existing dining infrastructure. Increasing each dining hall business would also be beneficial for Ohio State.

 

Social Values: A social value defined is the time saved. Time will ultimately be saved because the drones will allow students to stay in their current location while food is being delivered to them, saving them time on studying for tests and doing other class assignments. Since everyone saves time with this, there are no special considerations to be accounted for here. The second value defined is less time hungry. Students will certainly be less hungry because they have food more readily available to them, whether that be using the delivery service drones or going to the dining halls themselves. Individuals who are incapable or disabled to move can order food cheaper and faster. Obviously, the distance from other residence halls to the dining halls has to be taken into account, so special cases have to be made. People living on West Campus – Lincoln and Morrill Tower – or Lawrence Tower will need to wait longer times for the food to be delivered from the dining halls they ordered from. The third and final social value defined in Table 1 is less hassle to eat. There will be less hassle to eat as students need not change their schedule just to adapt to the dining hall times as the delivery service can handle the late hours of the night for all students. Since this benefits everyone, no special cases need to be mentioned here.

 

Future expansion of our plans may be to increase delivery radius that exceeds the campus. It would further increase business in the dining halls and allow for more customers to be reached. Further expansion may include drones delivering food from other restaurants to end users. Drones can be able to pick up food from non-OSU affiliated restaurants and deliver said food to end users.