According to Wired, a new type of robot is on the scientific horizon. Researchers are attempting to design robots more capable of working with humans.

RoboHow is the name of a European initiative which plans to develop systems to make robots learn and communicate similarly to human beings. Eventually, these machines will be preprogramed to perform certain tasks and piece information together, then storing the information for later use.

RoboHow was founded in 2012, and it has been helping develop the German robot PR2, which can perform physical actions based on instructions available from websites like WikiHow.

For now, the robot testing procedures involve performing tasks in the kitchen, specifically making pancakes. These tasks might appear menial, but they involve precise execution which highly depends on an intricate framework of prior knowledge of micro-tasks that we humans often take for granted, for example, understanding the amount of pressure required to open a container.

Further efforts are also being made to help robots learn by physically watching humans perform certain tasks, and then emulating the movements of the humans.

RoboHow’s website claims that making popcorn and mastering the flip while preparing pancakes are a couple of the android activities at hand.