That's the idea behind Boxie, a robot created by Alexander Reben at MIT Media Lab. Reben wanted to design a robot that could approach people and get them to answer interview questions on camera. He also needed the robot to be inexpensive, rugged, and lightweight. By making the robot adorable solved all these problems at once.
Boxie is just a boxy head with wide-set eyes on wheels. Its computerized "brain" isn't very sophisticated, so Boxie just wanders around somewhat helplessly, its cardboard head wobbling and its toddler-like voice plaintively calling out for attention, waiting for a human to come rescue it. Which humans inevitably do. Watch how irresistible this simple trick is in making a difference in robot-human interaction.
We also recommend watching: "Nao Next Gen: The New Generation of RoboToys" and "Frubber: Creepy Human Face Robotics".
The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a series of practical inventions in the fields of wireless networks, field sensing, web browsers and the World Wide Web.
Boxie: Cuteness for Human-Robot Interaction