After obtaining his Bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Informatics and his Master’s degree in Intelligent Systems, both at Bielefeld University, Manuel Baum started to work on his  Doctoral degree at the Robotics and Biology Laboratory at TU Berlin and then also became a member of SCIoI. Robots and animals need to solve tasks, but for some tasks the information required is unknown until the agent actually starts to solve a problem, and it needs to be gathered interactively. But which information is actually task-relevant, and how can a robot / animal gather that information? This was the subject of task-directed exploration and interactive perception, which are Manuel’s two main research interests. In the SCIoI project “Intelligent kinematic problem solving”, together with colleagues from Berlin, Oxford and Vienna, Manuel researched how cockatoos and robots can explore, understand and solve complex mechanical puzzles.