Leonardo is a 2.5 foot social robot, the first created by the Dr. Cynthia Breazeal at the Personal Robots Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The body is made by Stan Winston Studios, leaders in animatronics. Its body was completed in 2002.

Cory Kidd, then a PhD student in Cynthia Breazeal's Personal Robots Group, with Autom, the robotic weight-loss coach he developed.

Matsuoka Hand: 4-Actuator, 36-Sensor Tendon-Driven End Effector with FSR Tactile Sensing, Cog Humanoid Platform, MIT AI Lab

John Kumph, a senior in mechanical engineering at MIT. Robopike, the first free-swimming robot fish, was a project started in 1993 with an aim to investigate the possibility of constructing a robotic submarine that could reproduce the way tuna and pike swim and see if they could find a superior system of propulsion for the autonomous underwater vehicles.

A surgeon operates inside the gap of the Signa SP "double doughnut," the world's first intraoperative MRI. Its open design let two surgeons work on either side of the patient. Tracked instruments were mapped onto MRI images refreshed during surgery. In 2011, the Brigham replaced the system with the AMIGO suite.

Kismet is a robot head made in the late 1990s at Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Dr. Cynthia Breazeal as an experiment in affective computing; a machine that can recognize and simulate emotions.

Maddox is an MDS (mobile, dexterous, social) robot from the MIT Media Lab.

First free-swimming robot fish. The Robot Pike will be used in research into discovering why fish are such efficient swimmers.

Robotic Suite at a Molecular Cancer Imaging Facility

Lab-grown cartilage is engineered tissue cultivated from human cells or stem cells on a supporting scaffold to repair damaged joints and structural defects.

Troody is an autonomous, bipedal robotic dinosaur modeled after a dinosaur from the Cretaceous period. Troody was created at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab / Leg Lab. It is about 4 feet long, weighs about ten pounds, and has 16 joints and 36 sensors.

This SUGV manufactured by iRobot Corporation is a prototype that was later developed for use by soldiers, combat engineers and mobile explosive ordnance disposal.

John Kumph, a senior in mechanical engineering at MIT. Robopike, the first free-swimming robot fish, was a project started in 1993 with an aim to investigate the possibility of constructing a robotic submarine that could reproduce the way tuna and pike swim and see if they could find a superior system of propulsion for the autonomous underwater vehicles.

A robotic arm moves microplates between storage stacks and lab instruments as a scientist monitors the run.

Cog was a project at the Humanoid Robotics Group of MIT. It was based on the hypothesis that human-level intelligence requires gaining experience from interacting with humans, like human infants do.

Cog was a project at the Humanoid Robotics Group of MIT. It was based on the hypothesis that human-level intelligence requires gaining experience from interacting with humans, like human infants do.

This SUGV manufactured by iRobot Corporation is a prototype that was later developed for use by soldiers, combat engineers and mobile explosive ordnance disposal.

The fleet of Autom robots built for Cory Kidd's weight-loss study, shown without their outer shells.

The bare mechanical head of Autom, Cory Kidd's robotic weight-loss coach, shown without its outer shell.

Dr. Harald Ott, Organ Regeneration Pioneer, Massachusetts General Hospital.

A disassembled My Real Baby reveals the mechanisms beneath its face. Released with Hasbro in 2000, the doll was one of iRobot's early steps into consumer robotics, two years before the company launched the Roomba vacuum and helped bring robots into millions of homes.

The iRobot-LE, one of the first home robots controllable over the internet, rolls up to a desk at iRobot. Owners could drive it through their homes from anywhere in the world, seeing and speaking through its camera and speakers, and it could even climb stairs.

Kismet is a robot head made in the late 1990s at Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Dr. Cynthia Breazeal as an experiment in affective computing; a machine that can recognize and simulate emotions.

A robotic flower garden that senses and responds to people, created by Cynthia Breazeal's Robotic Life Group at MIT. Hidden sensors detect visitors' hands and bodies, prompting petals to open and close, tentacles to reach or retreat, and blossoms to sway and glow.

A robotic flower garden that senses and responds to people, created by Cynthia Breazeal's Robotic Life Group at MIT. Hidden sensors detect visitors' hands and bodies, prompting petals to open and close, tentacles to reach or retreat, and blossoms to sway and glow.

Cog was a project at the Humanoid Robotics Group of MIT. It was based on the hypothesis that human-level intelligence requires gaining experience from interacting with humans, like human infants do. 

Thad Starner, a founding member of the MIT Wearable Computing Project, wears one of the first wearable computers: a head-mounted display, a one-handed Twiddler keyboard, and a shoulder bag of hardware. He began wearing it full-time in 1993, and nearly two decades later helped develop Google Glass. Behind him is I.M. Pei's Landau Building.