RoboHow, a European research project that began back in February 2012, is attempting to teach humanoid robots how to perform mundane everyday tasks.
This includes activities performed in living environments, such as cooking, as well as in office environments, such as adding paper to a printer.
The learning process these robots endure is very similar to what we experience. The PR2, RoboHow’s robot, acquires information from the web, using sources such as WikiHow, and adds to that information by observing human action.
Although humans seem to instinctively understand certain processes, these robots need to be taught everything from how to hold a spatula to how to flip a pancake, Quartz writes. However, once one robot perfects a specific task, that knowledge is collected in a database for all other RoboHow robots to access.
Watch researchers teach this robot how to make pancakes: