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Robots race, play football, crash and collapse at China’s ‘robot Olympics’<br>
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China kicked off the three-day long World Humanoid Robot Games on Friday, looking to showcase its advances in artificial intelligence and robotics with 280 teams from 16 countries.<br>
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Robots competed in sports such as track and field, and table tennis, as well as tackled robot-specific challenges from sorting medicines and handling materials to cleaning services.<br>
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Teams came from countries including the United States, Germany and Brazil, with 192 representing universities and 88 from private enterprises such as China’s Unitree and kraken20.at - https://kra11at.net Fourier Intelligence. Competing teams used robots from Chinese manufacturers such as Booster Robotics.<br>
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"We come here to play and to win. But we are also interested in research," said Max Polter, a member of HTWK Robots football team from Germany, affiliated with Leipzig University of Applied Sciences.<br>
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"You can test a lot of interesting new and exciting approaches in this contest. If we try something and it doesn’t work, we lose the game. That’s sad but it is better than investing a lot of money into a product which failed."<br>
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Organizers said the games provide valuable data collection opportunities - https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/?s=opportunities for developing robots for practical applications such as factory work.<br>
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Organizers said the games provide valuable data collection opportunities for developing robots for practical applications such as factory work. Florence Lo/Reuters<br>
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At the robot games in Beijing, which charged 128 to 580 yuan ($17.83-$80.77) for tickets, humanoids crashed into each other and toppled over repeatedly during football - https://www.wordreference.com/definition/football matches, while others collapsed mid-sprint during running events.<br>
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During one football match, four robots crashed into each other and fell in a tangled heap. In the 1500-meter running event, one robot suddenly collapsed while running at full speed, drawing gasps and cheers from spectators.<br>
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Despite frequent tumbles requiring human assistance to help robots stand, many managed to right themselves independently, earning applause from audiences.<br>
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Organizers said the games provide valuable data collection opportunities for developing robots for practical applications such as factory work.<br>
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Football matches help train robots’ coordination abilities, which could prove useful for assembly line operations requiring collaboration between multiple units, commentators said.<br>
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China is investing billions of dollars in humanoids and robotics as the country grapples with an aging population and growing competition with the U.S. over advanced technologies.<br>
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It has staged a series of high-profile robotics events in recent months, including what it called the world’s first humanoid robot marathon in Beijing, a robot conference and the opening of retail stores dedicated to humanoid robots.<br>
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Morgan Stanley analysts in a report last week noted a surge in attendance to a recent robot conference from the general public compared to previous years, saying this showed "how China, not just top government officials, has embraced the concept of embodied intelligence."