The second World Humanoid Robot Games are currently taking place in Beijing, with nine newly introduced events, including the 400-meter hurdles, cheerleading, and weightlifting, officially making their debut yesterday. What exactly do these competitions test? Let's find the answers on the field.

The obstacle races include both the 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles. The 100-meter event features a series of ten consecutive obstacles, such as S-shaped bridges, symmetric slopes, spiral staircases, and continuous hurdles. The 400-meter race raises the difficulty with 16 obstacles, including climbing over boxes, crawling under ground nets, navigating tire formations, and crossing plum blossom桩. Gong Xiao, a committee member of the Games' organizing committee and deputy director of the China Software Testing Center, noted a major change this year: the obstacle race has shifted from a single track to a dual-track format, where two robots run side-by-side and clear obstacles simultaneously. Gong explained that these events no longer just look at how fast a robot can run. Instead, they integrate speed, strength, balance, resistance to disturbance, and whole-body coordination into a single task.

Weightlifting is also a new event this year, with both lightweight and heavyweight categories starting their competitions last night. What specific capabilities is this new event designed to test? Gong introduced that it evaluates not only the torque of the motors but also a complete chain of abilities: from end-effector grasping, joint output, and structural strength, to whole-body coordination and dynamic balance under load. When a robot lifts a heavy object and holds it steady, it requires strong synergy between the upper limbs, torso, and lower limbs. These skills are not confined to "weightlifting" itself; in real-world operations, many tasks involving carrying, lifting, raising, and placing objects demand similar load handling and whole-body coordination.

Three scenario-based events were held yesterday. The first is the industrial scenario, the "Packing and Warehousing Station." The first step is boxing: uniformly placing finished medicine boxes into a carton. The difficulty lies not only in fitting them in but also in arranging them neatly. This tests the robot's visual recognition capabilities and its skill in spatial planning for multiple objects. The second step is packaging: inserting the medicine blister packs and instruction leaflets into the medicine box and completing the lid closure. The blister packs are thin and rigid, while the leaflets are soft paper—one hard and brittle, the other soft and flimsy. The robot cannot use the same technique for both materials. This poses a significant challenge for grip force, insertion angle, and the precision of dual-arm coordination. The third step is box folding: forming a flat cardboard sheet into a three-dimensional medicine box. Cardboard is a flexible material, requiring the robot to make adjustments based on the box's real-time shape. These three processes together form the complete test for the robot at the packing and warehousing station.

Another scenario event is the "Comprehensive Service Station" for office settings. The first task involves placing table name cards, bottled water, and hard pads on a conference table according to requirements, testing visual recognition and spatial planning. The second task is to load paper into a printer and retrieve printed materials, testing precise end-effector alignment. The printer's paper tray gap is only a few millimeters wide, and the paper must be inserted precisely into the slot—any deviation is not allowed. Finally, the robot must separate materials slated for destruction into several portions and feed them into a shredder. It must first judge the thickness, then separate the paper, and align each piece with the narrow shredder inlet to feed them one by one, preventing jams while ensuring complete destruction. Gong Xiao noted that throughout these tasks, each one tests the robot's ability to handle multi-task switching and fine operation stability in unstructured environments.

In the "Smart Charging Service Station" for new energy scenarios, the robot must complete charging or plug-reset operations for three vehicles sequentially within 30 minutes. The vehicle's charging port space is limited, and even a slight angle deviation during plug insertion can prevent it from connecting, while also needing to avoid scratching the car's paint. Operating beside the vehicle leaves little room for maneuver, requiring a series of high-precision actions within a constrained area. Gong stated that this tests both obstacle avoidance and path planning, as well as the ability to "straighten out" flexible cables, with safety and standardization being equally critical.

The humanoid robot relay race saw tightened rules, with the handover zone becoming a stage for "human-machine collaboration." Entering the fourth competition day of the Games, the heats, semifinals, and finals of the 4x100-meter relay will all take place today. What are the rule changes for this year's relay? How do judges precisely define a valid handover during on-site officiating? Chen Bin, the event supervisor for track and field at the robot games, provided explanations. Chen noted that unlike human track events, the humanoid robot 4x100-meter relay does not use a familiar physical baton. The 30-meter handover zone becomes the core stage for the four robots to complete their relay interaction. This year's judging rules for the handover have been significantly tightened compared to last year. The positional relationship between the handing-off and receiving robots directly determines whether a time penalty is applied or even whether the race is completed. The handover zone is 30 meters, the same as in human races, divided into three sections. The relay is considered complete when any part of the handing-off and receiving robots makes contact within the zone.

It's important to note that the 4x100-meter relay is a fully autonomous process event. After the robots start, all running, acceleration, and deceleration are executed by the robots' own programs. However, pressing the start button and stopping after the handover still require manual control by the on-site operators. This means the relay competition is not just about the robots' motion control capabilities, but also about human-machine collaboration and the coordination between operating teams. Operators must thoroughly understand their robot's acceleration and running speed to anticipate the handover timing. The relay track serves as an excellent window into the technological iteration of domestic humanoid robots. Unlike the pure straight-line sprint of the 100 meters or the curve-speed control of the 400 meters, the relay combines multiple challenges: acceleration, constant speed, deceleration, and dynamic interaction. Robots must not only run steadily and quickly but also perform positional interaction between two bodies while in dynamic motion. On the programming side, this requires not only algorithms for motion dynamics but also a developer's understanding of the inherent rules of sports competition itself.