Club a Baby Seal Robot

Paro, the robotic baby seal, was developed to decrease loneliness of elderly cooped up in retirement communities in Japan.

Apparently, 2005 is the "unofficial year of the robot" for Japan, with widespread adoption of synthetic replacements of all kinds of things in Japan. Seeing eye robots, "get me a beer" robot (also known as the wife robot), secretary robot (also know as the "damn, now who am I supposed to cheat on my wife with" robot), and of course, the cute cuddly favorite of most Japanese kids, the lawn-mowing robot. The consumer robot craze over there has created such an industry that the government started a special commission on developing safety guidelines on consumer interactive robots.

Sounds like a shit load of fun to design. The States isn't lagging behind too much in "the year of the robot" but the scope of our robotic development is limited to mostly military functions.