Humanoids

Tiangong Clears 3.4 Meters in the Standing High Jump Final

Shar Hendrix 3 min read

A humanoid from the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre won the standing high jump final at the second World Humanoid Robot Games on August 25, clearing 3.4 meters. CGTN’s clip shows the machine leaving the floor and going over the bar. Global Times names Team Tiangong as first. CNBC-TV18 names Team Tianzhuo from the same centre. Those are the team and the platform family, not two different robots.

CGTN says the event tested leg power, balance, and landing control. That is the interesting part. A standing jump is not a run-up Fosbury flop. The robot has to make vertical force from a dead stop, hold posture in the air, and eat the landing.

Standing high jump final, 3.4 m clearance. Source: coverage clip via YouTube.

How they score it

Cui Jie, a WHRG referee, told Global Times that robots are judged on jump height, landing, and rule compliance. A chip or tag sits on the lowest point of the body and an instrument scans it after takeoff. That is a cleaner measurement story than a bar-only high jump.

The same Global Times piece puts this 3.4-meter final above the 2.88-meter standing jump reported earlier in the Games, and above last year’s humanoid best of about 0.95 meters. CGTN’s closing recap uses 0.95641 meters as last year’s record and 3.40 meters as this year’s. Human high-jump world records are a different event with a run-up. Do not treat 3.4 versus Javier Sotomayor’s 2.45 as the same sport.

A white-and-black humanoid robot airborne with arms out over a blue indoor floor
Explosive jump on the Oval floor during the closing stretch of the Games. Source: Global Times / Li Hao.

CNBC-TV18 says nearly 20 robots reached the final, each with three attempts, highest valid jump counting. I am taking that as the outlet’s count, not an official start list I fetched.

A Human’s Take

I like the tag on the lowest body point. Height is easy to hype. Landing is the part that tells you whether the hip and ankle can take a shift. If the scan chip is honest, this is a power-and-recovery test, not a bar-clearing costume. Next I want to see the same legs do that jump twice in a row without a hoist.

Sources

Tags: Humanoids