Beijing held what’s being called the world’s first half-marathon for robots, allowing bipedal bots to compete alongside human runners, and as one might expect, ridiculousness ensued. The robots, which had human operators running with them, for the most part struggled to make it through the course at all, let alone complete the full 13 miles within the four-hour cutoff time. “One fell at the starting line,” reports. “Another’s head fell off and rolled on the ground. And one collapsed and broke into pieces.” They may not be gold medalists just yet, but the videos sure are entertaining.
According to Bloomberg, 21 robots participated in the race, but the winner — X Humanoid’s five-foot-ten Tiangong Ultra — was one of only four to make it all the way to the end in the allotted time. And at two hours and 40 minutes, its finishing time was more than double that of the winning human runners.
The teams were allowed to do battery swaps (Tiangong Ultra reportedly finished on its third battery) and even switch out their robots mid-race for substitutes, though doing that came with time penalties. Along with Tiangong Ultra, which ran at around five miles per hour, the robot runners included Noetix Robotics’ N2, a Gundam-inspired robot, a “female-looking” bot called Huan Huan, and the 30-inch-tall Little Giant robot made by local college students, Bloomberg reports. Many of them were wearing human running shoes.
