Big Hero 6, Disney’s latest animated effort, follows the friendship of young prodigy Hiro Hamada and his inflatable robot Baymax.

Big Hero 6's Robot

When Disney director Don Hall was developing the idea for Big Hero 6, he realized he needed a unique robot that would be “appealing but also huggable," reported NPR. During his research, he chatted with Carnegie Mellon University robotics expert, Chris Atkeson, who provided him with the winning idea.

"Dude, you had me at 'inflatable,' "Hall told Atkeson when he met with him back in 2011. Atkeson told him, “I have a colleague here who explicitly designs huggable robots.”

When Hall visited Carnegie Mellon, Atkeson and his colleague were working on robotic designs that could be implemented in nursing homes. The robots would be designed to touch the nursing home residents, potentially completing tasks such as wiping a face or combing one’s hair. In order for such a robot to work, it had to be softer than the metal-heavy robots people are more familiar with.

"It's been called a 'balloonlike' robot," Atkeson said, describing the design they ultimately came up with. "It actually has compartments, so it's more like a balloon animal that a clown makes at a party."

In Big Hero 6, Baymax is the invention of one of the child scientist superheroes. Baymax's main job is as a robotic healthcare nurse, but he ultimately becomes an armored, villian-fighting robot. He’s voiced in the animated feature by 30 Rock’s Scott Adsit.