Story at a glance
- The town of Christiansburg, Va., has been a testing ground for Wing since 2019.
- The company reportedly started working with the local Girl Scout troops as the coronavirus pandemic slowed down sales.
- The drones can navigate without a human controlling them remotely and are powered by 12 vertical propellers and two forward propellers on their wings.
A subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. is delivering Girl Scout cookies to doorsteps in a Virginia community via drone, according to The Associated Press.
Wing is a company that offers drone delivery service from businesses to homes and has operations in the U.S., Australia and Finland. The town of Christiansburg, Va., has been a testing ground for the company in its commercial drone delivery since 2019, successfully delivering FedEx packages, pastries, coffee and other items.
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Now the company has teamed up with the Girl Scouts of Virginia Skyline to deliver boxes of Samoas, Thin Mints and other varieties to customer’s homes. The drones have been delivering cookies over recent weeks.
The company reportedly started working with the local Girl Scout troops as the coronavirus pandemic slowed down sales, as cookies have been traditionally sold at booths outside grocery stores and door-to-door in neighborhoods.
“I’m excited that I get to be a part of history,” Gracie Walker, an 11-year-old with the Girl Scouts of Virginia Skyline Troop 224, told The Associated Press.
“People are going to realize and be like, ‘Hey, this is better for the environment and I can just walk outside in my pajamas and get cookies,’” Walker said.
The drones can navigate without a human controlling them remotely and are powered by 12 vertical propellers and two forward propellers on their wings. When a drone reaches its destination, it releases a tether that drops the package.
Cookies are available to order for drone delivery through the Wing app or website in Christiansburg until the end of next month.
Other companies such as Amazon, UPS and Walmart are working on drone delivery methods, and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has allowed for various tests of delivery models.
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