Effectiveness included safety, coverage of the reception area, recognition of humans, offering of hors d'oeuvres, and detection of need for refills; entertainment value was determined by popular vote. To fully exploit the talents of our team, drawn from Brandeis's multirobot Interaction Lab and robotic theater troupe Ullanta Performance Robotics, we entered a team of three dramatically interacting robots. At this height, they could neither effectively serve nor avoid being tripped over in the crowd, and our participation in the Find-Life-on-Mars event dictated that we be able to switch software and hardware to turn a Mars exploration team into a domestic service staff in fewer than five minutes. We contrived a simple manipulator able to physically offer snacks at a convenient height by attaching a 3-foot pole to the back of each robot. On top of this pole was hinged a rigid tube with a snack container at one end and a serving bowl at the other (see figure).