They’re playing. It’s fun to mess with one robot and not with the other. Mystery solved. Maybe it would surprise the researchers to learn that children don’t treat this as seriously as they do.
This. These researchers clearly don't have kids. This kind of behaviour is a big part of how they learn. Do something, see what happens. Keep doing it, see if anything changes. Intensify it until something else happens. To act surprised at this behaviour (gasp, so uncivil) or to frame these kids as some embodiment of evil (blocking and striking a robot!) shows they need to research Early Childhood Education as much as Robotics.
