At the opening of the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Aug. 22, Chinese humanoid robots displayed striking athletic progress, drawing cheers from the crowd as they ran, jumped and played sports. One robot, Flash, a humanoid model from Chinese smartphone maker Honor, covered 100 meters in 9.39 seconds, a time faster on paper than Usain Bolt’s men’s 100-meter world record of 9.58 seconds, though the article noted the events are not directly comparable because the rules and conditions differ.
Another robot, TianGong Ultra from the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, cleared 288.43 centimeters in a standing high jump demonstration, exceeding the men’s human high jump world record of 245 centimeters on paper. The article said the crowd erupted as the robot appeared to spring upward like a coil, but also stressed that the robot competition format differs from human track and field and cannot be compared as an official world record.
The event was held at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing, where spectators filled the stands and shouted encouragement as robots raced, stumbled and sometimes performed awkward motions. Compared with a year ago, the article said, the robots’ movements looked more natural, and in some events they more closely reproduced human motion or surpassed top human marks numerically.
The opening also featured table tennis, a new event this year designed to test robots’ ability to predict and respond to fast-moving balls. Olympic champion Ding Ning, a two-time gold medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics, said after rallying with a robot that it returned every shot even when she varied the angle and height.
