Lurch: The Social Robot that can Wait

A design experience involving the transformation of a retired security robot into a social robot that safely serves refreshments to party guests is presented. The design is based on a security robot from the 1990's. The robot has the physical form of a bar table on wheels. Simplicity of interaction is emphasized in the design. A three-state behavior is used: if it detects drinks and refreshments on its tabletop then it wanders the room in search of people using a phonotaxis approach. If the drinks and refreshments have been removed then it returns to a designated corner of the room for reloading. It uses a lidar sensor to avoid collisions with obstacles and people. The robot serves as an interesting research platform for human-robot interaction.