While research in the field of robotics has led to significant advances over the past few years, there are still substantial differences in how humans and robots handle objects. In fact, even the most sophisticated robots developed so far struggle to match the object manipulation skills of the average toddler. One particular aspect of object manipulation that most robots have not yet mastered is reaching and grasping for specific objects in a cluttered environment. To overcome this limitation, as part of an EPSRC-funded project, researchers at the University of Leeds have recently developed a human-like robotic planner that combines virtual reality (VR) and machine learning (ML) techniques. This new planner, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv and set to be presented at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), could enhance the performance of a variety of robots in object manipulation tasks.