Step into the latest exhibition at London's Science Museum, and you will be instantly welcomed by an animatronic baby. With his moving arms and blinking eyes, this incredibly realistic mechanical human is a bewildering - if not unsettling - sight. And that's one of the goals of the museum's new show looking at 500 years of humanoid robots: to chart their evolution and explore our reaction towards them throughout history. "Robots trouble us," curator Ben Russell tells Al Jazeera. "When you see a robot you're reading a lot into it as a human. If they are very life-like you don't really know what is the source of their being," he continues.

Throughout history, artists and scientists have sought to understand what it means to be human and create machines in our own image. Soon, an important member of the the remarkable 500-year history of humanoid robots could be brought back to life. London's Science Museum has launched its first Kickstarter campaign, which aims to raise funds to rebuild Eric – the UK's first robot. The Science Museum hopes a lost robot named Eric will be part of the exhibition (pictured here before it disappeared). It was the UK's first humanoid and toured the world wowing audiences The forthcoming show at London's Science Museum will include a collection of more than 100 robots from a 16th-century mechanical monk to robots from science fiction and modern-day research lab.

Throughout history, artists and scientists have sought to understand what it means to be human and create machines in our own image. Soon, a new exhibition will explore our obsession to recreate ourselves, revealing the remarkable 500-year history of humanoid robots. The forthcoming show at London's Science Museum will include a collection of more than 100 robots from a 16th-century mechanical monk to robots from science fiction and modern-day research lab. Soon, a new exhibition will explore our obsession to recreate ourselves, revealing the remarkable 500-year-old history of humanoid robots. It will enable visitors to discover the cultural, historical and technological context of humanoid robots and let them interact with 12 working humanoids on display.