A lot of people will try to avoid somebody on the sidewalk collecting money for charity, but it's hard to resist a robot that looks and acts like a sad little girl.

DONA was developed by Korean designer Min Su Kim as an "Urban Donation Motivating Robot", with what he describes as pet like interactions. Whatever it is, DONA really seems to work for collecting cash from passers by.

A lot of it is probably because kids want to see how DONA will react when they drop their coins, but I also think that people find engaging a robot less intimidating than interacting with a human collector.

DONA, via Yanko Design