Previously we looked at how robotics are being used to renew traditional Chinese shadow puppetry.  In 2008, a team at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory created a puppet robot called Heart to study human-robot interactions.  They presented it in public spaces to give people a taste of what the future might bring: an environment teeming with emotional, sociable robots.  Perhaps due to its lack of sophistication, I never really thought the Heart Robot Project was all that significant.  Then I saw this video where David McGoran (the primary puppeteer for Heart) discusses the project and its objectives, which lent a bit more credibility to the whole affair.

Video (Mirror):

[source: Heart Robot Project] via [Youtube]