The Snackbot: Documenting the design of a robot for long-term Human-Robot Interaction

We present the design of the Snackbot, a robot that will deliver snacks in our university buildings. The robot is intended to provide a useful, continuing service and to serve as a research platform for long-term Human-Robot Interaction. Our design process, which occurred over 24 months, is documented as a contribution for others in HRI who may be developing social robots that offer services. We describe the phases of the design project, and the design decisions and tradeoffs that led to the current version of the robot.