Snackbot Is Programmed for Deliciousness

OK, now this is more like it.

While I’ll stick by my article from just a few days ago that warned of some of the personal data security risks that may be associated with home robotics — and I will continue to warn of robots having recently discovered a taste for meat — these news updates force me to back off, at least a little, from my plea to send them all into space.

Some hungry engineers have come up with an electronic fellow named Snackbot. He’s okay. He can stay.

Snackbot is pretty much programmed to do what the name suggests, and the team of scientists and engineers at Carnegie Mellon University responsible for bringing Snackbot into existence couldn’t be happier with their creation’s performance. Unfortunately, no on-the-record statements were made available from inside the design team, presumably because everyone’s mouth was full.

We’ll refer you, however, to the project Web site, which describes the two-fold purpose for Snackbot: "to serve as a research platform for projects in robotics, design, and behavioral science," and perhaps more importantly, to make with the grub.

The Carnegie Mellon team certainly takes their snacking seriously, but there are some important and beneficial aspects to their project that go well beyond the matter of sating a case of the munchies. The Snackbot Project’s Web site describes what the team hopes to develop and refine through their work in cutting-edge snack provision:

"The research will allow the robot to navigate through congested areas in a socially acceptable fashion, detect individual people moving near the robot, recognize when someone that the robot knows approaches it, and autonomously learn to recognize new objects. Snackbot will support research in the fields of design and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) on using sound, motion, and form for human-robot interaction. Snackbot will support behavioral science research on such topics as personalization and people’s relationships with interactive objects, and research on snack services drawn from behavioral economics."

Photo courtesy of TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³, via flickr