🥇 China Hosts First "Olympics" for Robots
From August 14 to 17, Beijing hosts the first World Humanoid Robot Games. The event draws 280 teams from 16 countries, ranging from school and university squads to major players such as Unitree and Fourier. In total, more than 500 androids are competing.
Like the real games, the Robo-Olympics opened with a grand ceremony and theatrical performances. At the "Ice Ribbon" Olympic stadium, dozens of robots danced hip-hop, showed off Wushu moves, and played drums.
Sports events:
🏅 The program includes individual and team contests, such as soccer, basketball, running, boxing, and table tennis, as well as robot-only challenges, including warehouse and factory tasks.
⚽️ In the very first soccer match, the robots kept bunching up and toppling over, but one player still managed to score—apparently by accident, when the goalie seemed to forget what he was doing.
🦿 In the 1,500-meter race, the favorite from Unitree took first place with a time of 6 minutes 34 seconds. But the real crowd-pleaser was an accident—one robot, running at full speed, slammed into a human operator. The person fell but was unharmed, while the robot just kept on running as if nothing had happened.
The games run through August 17, and you can catch the live streams on the Reuters YouTube channel.
Do you think robots will replace humans in sports?
❤️ — Yes, robots are cooler
🔥 — No, that will ruin the sport
🎃 — Let's see robots vs humans!
