Patent attributes
A character skin for a toy robot has an outer cover having an inner surface that is shaped to conform to an outer surface of a robot body housing of a self-propelled, toy robot. The outer cover can be fitted onto the robot body housing to cover an outer surface thereof and then removed from the housing, preferably with requiring a tool. The outer cover has an identification mechanism that provides an identification of a robot character software program, wherein the identification is electronically detected by the toy robot and in response the robot character software program is executed by the toy robot which changes behavior of the toy robot, whenever the outer cover is fitted onto the robot body housing. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.