Hundreds of humanoid robots have been brought together in Beijing, China, for the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games.
The three-day event kicked off on Friday and involves more than 500 humanoid robots organized into 280 teams. Participants include robot manufacturers, universities, and research institutions from 16 countries, including China and the U.S.
The first-ever World Humanoid Robot Games comprises 26 events across three categories: Athletics, performance, and scenario-based challenges.
The athletic contests are based on human sports, including running races of 400 meters and 1500 meters, long jump, high jump, gymnastics, and soccer games.
The performance category, meanwhile, features solo and group dances, martial arts, and musical instrument demonstrations.
Finally, scenario-based challenges simulate real-world tasks such as sorting medicines, handling industrial materials, and conducting hospitality concierge services.
A video (top) features some of the robots in action on the first day. A running contest, for example, shows several of the bipedal-bots racing along a track at impressive speed, although one of the competitors clearly has trouble sticking to its lane.
The footage also shows a robot playing the piano, while another shows off its drumming skills.
Next up is what appears to be some kind of futuristic fashion show, with a number of robots dressed up in outlandish garb while strutting their stuff on a catwalk (of sorts). It’s during the fashion show that we see the first casualty of the Games — a robot collapsed in a heap that has to carried off by humans (couldn’t they get a robot to do it?).
We also glimpse what looks like a group of around 25 marching robots that may or may not be in training for the uprising. Let’s hope it’s the latter.
Robot soccer games are always good entertainment, though judging by the abysmal performance of a couple of players in the video, it’s going to be a long time before they mount a serious challenge to their human counterparts.
Soccer fails aside, technology in the humanoid robots sector has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years, and while the Beijing event is sure to provide plenty of entertainment over the coming days, it also offers robotics experts a rare global platform to showcase their latest innovations.
