As Coco becomes a fully functioning creature, some of the topics we hope to investigate will be the following:

• Biologically based models of emotions.

• Use of accepted experimental methodologies to compare a robot with biologically based models of emotion to lab animals.

• Use of a developmental progression to aid some types of learning.

• How to use Coco's body and walking style to make Coco more expressive when interacting with people.

• Acquire a better understanding of how a robot can engage in intelligent and enjoyable social interactions with people.

• Compact series elastic actuators for improved force control

• Learning limb dynamics in order to achieve robust and flexible motion control of the limbs,

• Learning hand-eye coordination.

• Awareness of Coco's own body.

• Advanced mappings between Coco and other creatures, including humans, as tools to aid learning, empathy and communication.

• Autonomous investigation of the environment as a method of learning common sense.

• A medial axis methods for machine vision.