helpless bots

Being functional and task-driven is something that we assume a robot is... But as we all know, technology can fail, miserably, rendering it helpless. However, the robots that we consider in this category are purposefully helpless:

• a screaming cube

• MANIC/LOVE, a puppet boy in a somewhat uncomfortable position

• Norman White's "Helpless Robot"

• PARO the helpless seal

• Tweenbots that need some help in crossing a park or public square

• hitchBOT the hitchhiking robot

Rendering a robot helpless can also learn us about our own emotions towards robots:

• upside down Furbies describes such an experiment

Helplessness is instantiated in various other robotic forms, such as in

• falling robots,

• Leonard van Munster's Dancing White Man, and

• even homeless robots.