China’s Robot Olympics Are More Fun Than Anyone Expected China’s humanoid robot games have become an unexpectedly entertaining spectacle. Over 2,000 humanoid robots, representing 666 teams, are competing at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. The events include sprinting, football, boxing, and challenging obstacle courses. And the reaction online has been clear: people are genuinely enjoying watching it. The robots themselves are a big part of the appeal. Some can move and run at speeds that would have been hard to imagine for humanoid machines only a few years ago. But the failures are just as entertaining. Robots crash, stumble, struggle to recover, miss kicks, lose their balance, and sometimes race straight past where they were supposed to stop. That is what makes the competition so interesting. One moment, you are watching an incredible demonstration of advanced robotics. The next, you are watching a robot unexpectedly collapse on the ground. There is still plenty of ...