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Chapter 20PLAY, DREAMS AND IMITATION IN ROBOTAAude BillardComputer Science Department, University of Southern CaliforniaAbstractImitation, play and dreams are as many means for the child to develop her/hisunderstanding of the world and of its social rules. What if we were to have arobot we could play with? What if we could through play and daily interactions,as we do with our children, be a model for it and teach it (what?) to be humanlike?This chapter describes the Robota dolls, a family of small humanoid robots,which can interact with the user in many ways, imitating gestures, learning howto dance and learning how to speak.1. IntroductionThe title of this chapter is a wink to Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget and hisbook Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood [16]. For Piaget, imitation, playand dreams are as many means for the child to develop her/his understandingof the world and of its social rules. This chapter discusses the aspects of thesebehaviors which make them relevant to research on socially intelligent agents(SIA)[7].Natural human-like interaction, such as imitation, speech and gestures areimportant means for developing likeable, socially interactive robots. Thischapter describes the Robota dolls, a family of small humanoid robots. TheRobota dolls can interact with the user in many ways, imitating gestures andlearning from her/his teachings. The robots can be taught a simple language,little melodies and dance steps.1.1 PlayEntertainment robotics (ER) is one of the many fields which will benefitfrom the development of socially intelligent agents. ER aims at creating play-