 When it is gradually exposed to smaller robots, and is coached by holding its hands and talking to it in a soothing manner, it learns to overcome its fear.This approach mimics the process of systematic desensitization, or graded exposure treatment, common in the treatment of phobias.Phobot was built for a competition at the international conference on human-robot interaction 2008 from a Lego Mindstorms robot kit, and its behaviour implemented in the Mindstorms software.