James Vincent

Apptronic make a more general-purpose robot that looks much more like a human in terms of, you know, normal sort of body proportions, stands upright, you look it eye to eye, or eye to unblinking robot eye, whatever that might be.

I got to meet them, shake hands.

I played Ikakok.

Do you know this?

No.

Rock, paper, scissors is what it is.

Sorry.

It's called Ikakok sometimes in the UK.

I did not know that.

I thought we were going to talk about robots, but that's now the most fun fact you've given us.

Yeah, you go, ick, ack, ock.

Yeah, and then you throw, whether it's rock, paper, or scissors.

Anyway.

They come to us for one thing, but we give them something else, you know?

Exactly.

And I also got, this was my heart's content.

You know, I so wanted to do this.

I wanted to kick a robot.

Kicking robots happens to be an efficient method of testing a machine's balance.

In recent years, as robots have become increasingly sophisticated, their makers have gone from kicking them to shoving them, tripping them, even hitting them with folding chairs.