DAVID POGUE: How do you transform metal, motors and microchips into a machine that can walk on two legs?

All right, so Dennis, this is your "home robot construction kit?"

DENNIS HONG: This is the robot cooking show, as a matter of fact.

DAVID POGUE: Cooking show?

DENNIS HONG: You'll be making one of these.

DAVID POGUE: Oh, wow.

DENNIS HONG: This is called "Darwin O.P."

DAVID POGUE: Darwin is a pint-sized humanoid robot that Dennis created back in 2004, a research platform he uses to find out what it takes for a robot to walk on its own two feet.

DENNIS HONG: This is all the parts you need, and you are going to put it together today.

DAVID POGUE: Yeah, right.

DENNIS HONG: Are you ready?

DAVID POGUE: No.

This is not Legos, let me tell you. We'll start out with the M4.

To create Darwin, Dennis took his clues from nature. Number one, he needs to see. As you walk, you use your eyes to assess your environment. Darwin sees the world through this tiny webcam.

DENNIS HONG: Actually, the eyes, the big ones, are just fake. The nose is actually the camera.

DAVID POGUE: So your saying that all this is just cosmetic?

DENNIS HONG: Those are not the eyes.

DAVID POGUE: Oh, you're such a…

DENNIS HONG: We cheated.

DAVID POGUE: Number two, he needs a sense of balance. As you shift your weight from one foot to the other, your inner ear is able to sense the change in your position and keep you from falling. Darwin gets this ability from a sensor in this circuit board.

DENNIS HONG: These two small things, these are the balance sensors. So it knows its orientation and direction.

DAVID POGUE: Ah, that seems to want to fit right here.

DENNIS HONG: You're good at this. Have you done this before?

DAVID POGUE: Thousands of times.

Even if Darwin can see and balance he still can't move without muscles and joints. Number three: your muscles are your body's engine, you can't move without them. Darwin moves with the help of actuators.

DENNIS HONG: For each moving joint we have one of these actuators that is basically an electric motor.

DAVID POGUE: A motor that converts electrical energy into motion, and that gives Darwin the ability to move.

All right.

DENNIS HONG: He's done.

DAVID POGUE: We have arm!

DENNIS HONG: Yay!

DAVID POGUE: As for his sense of touch, he gets it from these four little sensors on the bottom of his feet.