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Beijing hosted the first-ever competition where dozens of humanoid robots ran a half marathon alongside humans — spoiler alert, there were many fakes.
In total, 21 robots and more than 12 thousand people took to the starting line. But only six machines made it to the finish line – the rest could not withstand the load. It all ended with overheating, falls, and the loss of certain body parts.
The participants were tasked with covering a distance of 21.1 km. The main star was the robot «Tiangong Ultra», which ran it in 2 hours and 40 minutes, which is within the qualifying time for humans (3 hours and 10 minutes). But most of the robots did not become such stars because they could not withstand the load.
Some fell down due to overheating or loss of power, while others had to change their batteries right during the race. The robots often received help from technicians, including water to cool them down and adhesive tape to fix them. Some of them were even fitted with children’s sneakers because they had lost their fingers.
For example, the robot «Huanhuan» barely moved and trembled as if it had a control failure. «Shennong» ran in a circle, crashed into a wall, and dragged his assistants with him, which looked like crayfish in a bucket. And «Xuanfeng Xiaozi» fell apart in the middle of the track — duct tape saved him from a complete fiasco.
The fact that some robots were able to run a half marathon at all already indicates a great progress in the industry. Just 5 years ago, engineers did not know how to make a bipedal robot walk steadily. Robotics professor Alan Fern says that although AI in such robots hasn’t evolved much since 2021, «iron» — has improved significantly.
«The impressive thing about going from a 5k to a half marathon is really a hardware robustness problem. And you know, I’ll be surprised if one of these companies makes it through without replacing the robot», — said robotics professor Alan Fern in a commentary for WIRED.
The participants did not look like autonomous runners, but rather like remote-controlled robots on legs. The race itself was more of a technology demonstration than a full-fledged competition. It helped to identify weaknesses: from instability to problems with heat dissipation and autonomy.
It also made it clear that robots still need constant human intervention — for cooling, battery replacement, and balance. Therefore, it is too early to discuss autonomous robots that can work independently in homes, factories, or during rescue operations. Well, leathers, let’s postpone survival against the robot uprising until «the day after tomorrow» and switch to AI models that have learned to determine the exact location from photos without metadata.
Source: Interesting Engineering