Robot Receptionist Dishes Directions and Attitude

This holiday season, a lot of children will open their presents and find robotic toys, like mechanical dogs and dinosaurs. Unfortunately, robot toys often disappoint.

They're just so robotic, repeating the same things over and over again. But a team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is exploring how to make robots more engaging over the long term. Their assistant is roboreceptionist Marion "Tank" LeFleur.

1. Robot - A robot (also called a droid) is a machine - especially one programmable by a computer - capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically.