(Image source: Roboy.org )   BY STEVEN SPARKMAN   A team of engineers in Zurich are building an advanced robotic child — and they plan to go from start to finish in nine months.   Roboy, the humanoid robot , is being designed to emulate humans in both the way it moves and how long it takes to, um, gestate.   They began development in June, 2012, and if all goes according to plan it’ll be finished in March. Judging from the video released by the team , they’ve already got a working torso and arms.   The team say they would eventually like to see Roboy mass-produced and put in use helping elderly people around the house. To that end, Science World Report says it’s being built...     “...as a tendon-driven ‘soft robot’ modelled on human beings. It can therefore move more fluently than ‘normal’ robots which employ motors in their joints, leading to a kind of robot break-dance look.”     Images of what a finished Roboy will look like have gone through several changes, leading to a cartoonish look with a bizarre see-through ribcage. But Popular Science notes even that will change.   “Roboy will also get so-called ‘soft skin,’ a layer of something to make it ‘safer and more pleasant.’ ... [P]resumably, the team is trying to avoid the uncanny valley, that point where robots are just human enough to give us the creeps without passing for actual humans.”   That’s just as well. The last robot the team built used the same movement principles, but wasn’t nearly as cuddly.   In fact, it looked like it would rather shoot death rays from its giant eye than help anyone.     The team hopes to unveil Roboy at the Robots on Tour event. There’s even talk of giving him a little tricycle to help him get around.   And like a growing number of the unborn these days, you can already friend Roboy on Facebook .