Part of the Chris project

Much like a real child interacting with its parent, iCub's eyes swivel from side to side, its luminous pink eyebrows and mouth glowing with excitement. "You have moved the trumpet. Found it. You have moved the trumpet. Found it.""Game over," says Lallée abruptly. iCub tilts its head towards Lallée, fixing him with its large black eyes. If you did not know better you would think iCub was disappointed. "Check on my internal state. That was pretty fun. We keep playing this game."

Part of the Chris project – short for Co-operative Human Robot Interactive Systems – iCub is at the vanguard of a new generation of social robots that is fast changing perceptions of what human-robot interactions will look like in the future. For iCub isn't just any old robot.If an explosives robot becomes your friend, can you still send it off to die? Measuring 93cm, it is a fully fledged humanoid "child" robot equipped with sophisticated motor skills and sense abilities, including vision, sound, touch, balance and proprioception – the ability to sense the position of its arms and body in space. These facilities enable iCub to crawl on all fours, grasp and manipulate balls and other objects and turn its head so as to follow gestures or direct its gaze.

Unlike conventional robots familiar from assembly lines, iCub isn't programmed to perform a specific set of actions or tasks. Instead it acquires skills naturally by using its body to explore the world and gather data about its relation to objects and people in that world, much as a two-year-old learns by interacting with his or her environment. Through its ability to direct its gaze, grasp and manipulate objects, and "read" gestures as it co-operates with human tutors on shared tasks like the Toybox game, iCub can learn words and skills and develop co-operative strategies.