University of Canberra researcher Dr Damith Herath and his team have spent countless hours programming Baxter.

The life-size robot is pretty good at noughts and crosses and was recently updated with a cheeky cheat mode to keep players guessing.

Later this month Baxter will have have his "social debut" meeting members of the Canberra public and embarking on experimental collaborations with humans, including an Indigenous Australian choreographer who wants to teach the robot some moves.

Dr Herath said Baxter was built from the ground up to work safely with humans and the forefront of robotics was increasing the machine's perception and ability to integrate smoothly into our daily lives.

"We have run a series of experiments to see how robots behave with humans," he said. "The experiment with noughts and crosses is about whether we can co-create experience with the machine."

Akin to the evolution of mobile phones the goal was to create "intuitive user experiences".

Dr Herath said while the integration of robots in our work and daily lives was inevitable there was a long road to travel.

"The rule is what is simple for a human is typically really hard for robots," he said.

Seemingly simple pick and pack tasks require a robot to identify a target and distinguish it in a field of view, compute its size, infer how to hold it, move in a way not to knock or damage other objects and recognise through cameras or sensors whether the object is in its grasp - and that's all before it is placed down again.

Canberrans will get the first taste of Baxter, but in October the robot will be a star attraction at CoLabs, a public science expo held outdoors at Bungarribee Park in Western Sydney Parklands dubbed 'Sydney's Biggest Backyard', in the first week of the October school holidays.

The $5 entry fee to the Sydney event will give people a chance to control a 4 metre high inflatable bear with their smartphone, step into an interactive sound garden that comes to life by touching plants and journey to the hidden world of chromosomes via a giant kaleidoscope.

Futuristic theme parks with robotic hosts as featured in the American series Westworld were a bit "far fetched" for now but Dr Herath said the rise of robots was coming.

"The bottom line is the technology is there now, some sort of autonomous system is going to permeate," Dr Hearth said. "Whether we like it or not robots are going to get into the social fabric in some form or another.'