The Playful Machine : Theoretical Foundation and Practical Realization of Self Organizing Robots Autonomous robots may become our closest companions in the near future. While the technology for physically building such machines is already available today a problem lies in the generation of the behavior for such complex machines. Nature proposes a solution: young children and higher animals learn to master their complex brain body systems by playing. Can this be an option for robots How can a machine be playful The book provides answers by developing a general principle homeokinesis the dynamical symbiosis between brain body and environment that is shown to drive robots to self determined individual development in a playful and obviously embodiment related way: a dog like robot starts playing with a barrier eventually jumping or climbing over it; a snakebot develops coiling and jumping modes; humanoids develop climbing behaviors when fallen into a pit or engage in wrestling like scenarios when encountering an opponent. The book also develops guided self organization a new method that helps to make the playful machines fit for fulfilling tasks in the real world. The book provides two levels of presentation. Students and scientific researchers interested in the field of robotics self organization and dynamical systems theory may be satisfied by the in depth mathematical analysis of the principle the bootstrapping scenarios and the emerging behaviors. But the book additionally comes with a robotics simulator inviting also the non scientific reader to simply enjoy the fabulous world of playful machines by performing the numerous experiments. 1.Introduction 2.Self Organization in Nature and Machines 3.The Sensorimotor Loop. 4.Principles of Self Regulation Homeostasis . 5.A General Approach to Self Organization Homeokinesis 6.From Fixed Point Flows to Hysteresis Oscillators 7.Symmetries Resonances and Second Order Hysteresis 8.Low Dimensional Robotic Systems 9.Model Learning 10.High Dimensional Robotic Systems 11.Facing the Unknown Homeokinesis in a New Representation* 12.Guided Self Organization A First Realization 13.Channeling Self Organization 14.Reward Driven Self Organization 15.Algorithmic Implementation 16.The LPZROBOTS Simulator 17.Discussion and Perspectives List of Figures List of Videos List of Experiments References Index.