Today, especially during this pandemic with increase of curbside pick-up services individual employees deliver grocery items to about 10-15 customers per day. And it is not an easy job as groceries tend to be heavy, navigating through warehouse facility take about 5-10 minutes of walking depending on the scale of the store, and another 5 minutes to get to customer in the parking lot.

By allowing Curby to finish the last mile delivery, it makes employees to be more flexible in terms of the operation, as well as one less time management for individual employees.

Consideration for both customers and employees

In the beginning phases, We have went through in-depth design research, conducted various user studies, and interviews to understand today’s curbside behaviors, their environments, and their additional needs from the experience. From both today’s users and employees who interacts with this delivery operation, we have gathered detailed insights from interviews and surveys to understand what curbside pickup service truly means and what it offers for its customers.

Based on research insights, we have generated various moodboards and inspiration boards. And based on those inspiration boards, we started sketching designs to explore on concepts that could potentially allow users to feel more comfortable and approachable towards our delivery robot.

Curby’s eyes

Curby have 2 Lidars. One at each opposite corners to map the overall environment and to create trajectory of the navigation. 6 cameras installed on the body so that Curby can detect obstacles, moving objects, and pedestrians for safer environment.

Modular Compartments

Based on the feedback of our client, we have thought about two compartments on top of the robot to be modular so that it can serve in different purposes. Few of the examples were considered to be use in product stocking, selling impulse purchases for marketing, bottle recycling for incentives, and grocery picking with the employee.