Snackbot: A Social, Snack-Fetching Robot
April 27th, 2009
Back in May 2008 it was announced that CMU professors Sara Kiesler and Jodi Forlizzi (from the HCI Institute) and Paul Rybski (from the Robotics Institute) were awarded $500k in Microsoft’s Human-Robot Interaction funding to develop a social, snack-selling robot. (Actually the $500K went towards 8 different academic research projects, one of which was CMU’s Snackbot. The funding was split between 8 different university projects, so each recipient received approximately $62,500.) Well, in December photos of the new CMU snackbot, conceptual designs, and construction photos came out.
We crafted a full-scale blue foam model, from which fiberglass molds were created. Outlaw Performance, located outside Pittsburgh, then proceeded to lay up the fiberglass shells. We also designed the internal skeleton and are in the process of assembling the robot and installing its internal electronics. Once these additional 4 shells and skeletons are complete (we are selling two of these robots to Stanford University) the shells will be painted by an autobody shop according to our designs.
I’m not sure if Snackbot is operational yet, but he has a cool design. And who doesn’t love a bot that will sell you snacks? Anyone know what happened with this bot? I’m hungry.
