As if simply entering the world wasn't already engaging enough, 4moms, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company founded by Carnegie Mellon robotics engineers, is introducing babies to the realm of gadgets. The company offers a stroller and baby bouncer featuring robotics, LCD screens, and cellphone chargers. While babies might giggle over the merry-go-round-like motions of the bouncer, it's probably the parents who are drooling over the technology.

4Moms' co-founder Henry Thorne and most of its engineering team come from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Thorne was one of the first graduates from the Robotics Institute and went on to design robotic assembly lines for General Motors – wich, as it turns out, was the perfect background for the baby gear business.

When co-founder Robert Daley had an idea for a self-folding stroller, he called on Throne to help engineer it. What the pair quickly realized was baby gear hadn't benefited from all the technological advances in consumer electronics. "[Baby products] haven't gotten the boost from the lowering cost of electronics, motors, and sensors that they should have, and hence moms are left fighting with products they should be enjoying," says Thorne.

The allure of a growing market for baby gear and parents willing to blow any amount to keep their bundle of joy happily cooing was enough to convince Daley and Thorne that building a robotic baby chair had some business potential. They weren't the only ones. The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association says the baby and child consumer market is worth $8.9 billion, and 4moms just raised $20 million from Bain Capital Ventures to expand its product line in the baby market.

A two-axis programmable robot with coordinated motion powers the MamaRoo, 4moms' baby bouncer that sways and bounces your baby to keep it entertained or calm. The bouncer has five baby-soothing settings such as ocean or kangaroo – ocean is a rocking motion, where kangaroo bounces your baby up and down (like a kangaroo). A car ride setting is meant to mimic that magic movement of a car that seems to pacify all screaming infants. The oval metal frame that makes up the baby seat mimics something straight from an Ikea catalog. MamaRoo starts at $200 and goes up in price depending on the fabric used in the seat. It's significantly more expensive than many other baby bouncers and you can thank the robot for that. But for parents of a screaming child, it might be worth every cent.

Origami's dashboard shows temperature and distance traveled. Photo: 4moms

The technology doesn't end there. 4moms also sells a stroller, Origami, that has almost as many features as a car. While not strictly speaking a robot (though a drone-stroller is an interesting/dangerous idea), Origami has an LCD dashboard with a speedometer and odometer, a cellphone charging port, daytime headlights, and kinetic generators in the wheels that power everything as you stroll. Origami even folds and unfolds by itself, with the help of a CAM-driven sinusoidal lift. All that technology will cost you $850, a bit higher than most, but not all, luxury strollers on the market.

For the propeller-head parents out there it's likely money well spent. But it's a slippery gadget-filled slope. Given that 5-year-olds are already demanding tablets to fit in with their friends, all this technology might breed a new generation of babies whose first words are not "mom" or "dad," but "Asimo."