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Robotics: The bot that plays ball

Nature volume 460, pages 1076–1078 (2009)Cite this article

He looks like a child and plays like a child. But can the iCub robot reveal how a child learns and thinks? Nicola Nosengo reports.

Giulio Sandini cannot help smiling as his child reaches out a hand and tries to grasp the red ball that Sandini keeps waving before his eyes. "He is getting really good at it," he says, with the proud tone of any father. True, most fathers would expect more from their three-year-old than the ability to grasp a ball. But Sandini is indulgent: although the object of his affection has the wide eyes and rounded cheeks of a little boy, he is, in fact, a robot.

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  1. Nicola Nosengo
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Nicola Nosengo is a freelance science writer based in Rome.

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Nosengo, N. Robotics: The bot that plays ball. Nature 460, 1076–1078 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/4601076a

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