A Penn student-led startup is currently piloting a fully automated boba tea vending machine on campus.
Located at the Accenture Café in the Towne Building, the machine allows customers to customize drink orders and operates all day. The “Orble” machine is a venture of Munch Industries, a company started in 2022 through a School of Engineering and Applied Science senior design project.
The Daily Pennsylvanian sat down with Wharton and Engineering sophomore Corina Chen — who also serves as the Chief Technology Officer at Munch Industries — to discuss Orble’s new on-campus venture.
Chen explained that she first became involved with Orble and Munch Industries in her freshman year, after discovering that both she and 2023 Engineering graduate Natassja Kuznetsova, the company’s current CEO, shared common interests: engineering and a love for boba.
Chen, who referred to the vending machine pilot as “Orble Beta,” oversees the machine’s mechanical development as one of the two mechanical engineers on the team.
“I’ve been able to wear a crazy number of hats,” Chen said, describing her experience working on the startup so far. “You can never expect what your workload is going to be the next day.”
Chen explained how she relied on her experience drinking boba tea when designing the product. She told the DP that she referenced a 48-page document describing drinks she had previously tried while developing recipes for Orble’s machine.
Though the current pilot relies on Chen and other workers to prepare drinks in advance, the final version is designed to function as a “robotic micro-kitchen,” allowing users to customize tea type, toppings, as well as sugar and ice levels.
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According to Chen, Orble’s mission is to bring convenience and accessibility to college students. By operating 24/7, she explained that the product offers “fresh kinds of food and beverage options to students who might be studying late at night.”
Chen added that the team hopes to expand the pilot program to other locations on campus — including 1920 Commons and the high rises.
Chen spoke with the DP about the different types of support the venture has received from Penn, and added that the Towne Building managers “love supporting student ideas and student groups.”
The company was also recently named as one of eight finalists in Venture Lab’s 2026 Startup Challenge. In May, it will compete for more than $200,000 in cash prizes, in-kind support, and additional resources.
In addition to $2,000 in funding from Venture Labs, Chen received a Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology Intern Fellowship Award that allowed her to work on the startup over the summer.
“[The awards were] absolute blessings,” Chen reflected, adding that expanding the startup has left them “completely bootstrapped.”
“Something that people don’t realize is that hard tech startups and software, like artificial intelligence startups, are completely different worlds,” Chen said, emphasizing the significant “upfront costs” required to build the machine before generating revenue.
“You can’t just launch this on the App Store and start making money,” Chen added. “It’s a long-haul, long investment.”
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Staff reporter Sameeksha Panda covers Penn Medicine and can be reached at panda@thedp.com. At Penn, she studies chemistry.
