Understanding how babies develop is an important part of
understanding how the human brain works. The quest to explore
the development of children led researchers at the University of
California, San Diego to build this utterly terrifying baby
robot. In cooperation with Japanese robotics firm Kokoro Co.,
Ltd., the team constructed this rather complicated machine that
is meant to mimic the actions of a one-year-old human child.
Unfortunately, they decided to give it a creepy rubber face and
no skin on the rest of its body, so it looks much more like a
nightmare than a child. The robot, named Diego-san, has over 60
moving parts in its body. Its five-fingered hands are able to
grasp objects, and the robot can even stand up from a sitting
(in a chair) position. The head contains more than 20 moving
parts that allow Diego-san to create facial expressions. The
head also contains high-res cameras in the eyes, a speaker in
the mouth, and accelerometers in the ears that detect the
robot’s movement and position. In add