A roving delivery robot made the mistake of dropping off a student's takeout order well-done after it caught fire at the University of California, Berkeley.

On Friday, students found a Kiwi delivery robot consumed by flames in the middle of campus.

A 30-second clip of the incident shows people looking on, many with their phones pulled out, watching idly as the four-wheeled droid burns, until a passerby finally puts out the flames with a fire extinguisher.

Kiwi Campus, the startup behind the device, later explained that the mishap was due to 'human error' and that it was removing all of its other robots from operation until it resolved an issue with the device's defective battery.

Scroll down for video

WHAT ARE KIWI ROBOTS? The delivery robots are made by Kiwi, a California-based startup that works out of University of California, Berkeley's startup incubator. Each delivery robot is a tiny, four-wheeled device that's about the size of a small dog. A Kiwi driver deposits the robot up to 300 meters away from the customer so that it can deliver the order. Users are notified via a smartphone app that their order is ready for pickup, then they lift a latch on the device to retrieve their food. Advertisement

'On the 14th of December this year, one of the batteries for our robot that was idling started smouldering, eventually leading to some smoke and minor flames,' the company said in a blog post.

'...Within moments of the incident occurring, it had already been contained.

'...We took this issue very seriously. Immediately upon learning of the incident, our operations team was dispatched to attend to the robot.

'We promptly pulled all of our robots from operations, suspending our service until we were able to investigate the root cause.

'...At no time were customers or members of the public at risk,' the firm added.

Kiwi concluded that the issue stemmed from 'human error,' as an employee had replaced the robot's battery with a defective one.

This caused the battery to experience 'thermal runaway,' which occurs when a damaged battery is overcharged or exposed to excessive temperatures, causing it to continuously overheat and, in some cases, catch fire.

A clip of the incident shows people looking on, many with their phones pulled out, watching idly as the four-wheeled droid burns, until a passerby finally extinguishes the flames

Kiwi concluded that the issue stemmed from 'human error,' as an employee had replaced the robot's battery with a defective one, causing 'thermal runaway' to occur

Thermal runaway is the same error that caused Samsung's infamous, exploding Galaxy Note 7 phone debacle.

Kiwi said it has taken additional steps to make sure this 'exceedingly rare occurrence' of thermal runaway wouldn't happen again.

'To ensure this will not happen again, Kiwi has put in custom software that will rigorously monitor the state of each battery,' the firm explained.

UC Berkeley students paid tribute to the scorched delivery bot by calling for a moment of silence.

Some even went as far as holding a vigil for the Kiwibot to mark its demise, while others blamed finals week as the catalyst for its fatal flare up.

Kiwi robots have been delivering takeout orders to hungry students on UC Berkeley's campus for nearly two years without incident.

The firm has a fleet of over 100 robots and it has delivered more than 100,000 orders, according to TechCrunch.

Kiwi robots are roughly the size of a small dog and are meant to make deliveries over short distances of up to 300 meters.

It relies on technology similar to a Roomba, using a variety of sensors and cameras to navigate sidewalks in a way that won't disrupt pedestrians and others trying to get around.

Kiwi has a fleet of over 100 robots and it has delivered 100,000 orders. They're roughly the size of a small dog and are meant to make deliveries over short distances of up to 300 meters

Similar to delivery robots made by the likes of Postmates or Starship Technologies, users downloads the Kiwi app and make an order on their smartphone.

A Kiwibot heads to the restaurant to pickup an order then returns to a driver, which deposits the bot up to 300 meters away from the customer.

The app tells the user when the robot has arrived and the customer can then lift a latch on top of the device to retrieve their food.