A claim that students of the Department of Mechatronics at the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, in Ekiti state have designed and constructed a waiter robot that serves food in a restaurant has surfaced online.
The claim was contained in a video that originated from TikTok. In the video, the robotic waiter could be seen taking meals to sitting customers in a restaurant.
The original version of the video was posted by @house_of_lovedoctor but there have been variations of the same video posted by different accounts on TikTok as seen here and here which had a caption that wasn’t in the initial video.
The captions read:
Who says that capacities are not in Nigeria.
This is a robot designed and constructed by the Department of Mechatronics, Federal University, Oye- Ekiti, serving food in a restaurant.
The video has also been circulating on WhatsApp closed group chats and Facebook as seen here. In separate posts, they have both garnered a combined total of over 23,000 views, over 400 shares, 348 reactions and 104 comments.
CLAIM
Students of the department of Mechatronics at Federal University of Oye-Ekiti constructed a waiter robot.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is FALSE!
The caption in the original video did not state if the robot was made by the university’s Mechatronics Engineering department or that he experimented with the robot at a restaurant in Oye-Ekiti.
The caption read:
At point a point where a customer obstructs ANITA’S operation she cries for help. Shop located at 4150 Lafayette rd IN 46254 Indianapolis Afs kitchen Amala toh sure.
Further findings revealed that the invention made by the department rather, is a mail dispatch mobile robot developed by Oluwaseun Martins, a lecturer in the department for his PhD thesis which was launched in December 2021, according to Thisday report and FUOYE report too.
A Google reverse image search done on the screenshot of the video led us to another image of the same robot in the restaurant which showed that the name of the brand is Servi Robot made by Bear Robotics, a technology company based in the United States of America which specializes in hospitality.
THE VERDICT
The claim that students of the department of Mechatronics at Federal University, Oye-Ekiti constructed a waiter robot is false; the waiter robot in footage was constructed by the US-based Bear Robotics.
Seasoned fact-checker and researcher Fatimah Quadri has written numerous fact-checks, explainers, and media literacy pieces for The FactCheckHub in an effort to combat information disorder. She can be reached at sunmibola_q on X or [email protected].
