Winner of world’s first robot marathon crosses the line after 55 hrs!
By ANISunday, February 27, 2011
LONDON - The average time for completing a marathon is 4 hours 30 minutes for men and 5 hours 10 minutes for women.
However, the winner of the world’s first robot marathon, Robovie PC, took a slightly more leisurely time of 54 hours, 57 minutes and 50.26 seconds, reports the Daily Mail.
The event, which started three days ago, has just come to a close in Osaka Western Japan, on Sunday.
In total, five two-legged robot entrants went under starters orders on Thursday but some are not expected to complete the requisite 26 miles until Sunday, when their human counterparts run in the popular Tokyo marathon.
The 12in tall, battery-charged robots competed 422 laps around an indoor 100-m oval racetrack and the start was a true sporting spectacle.
On their marks, the robots bent their metal knees, stretched steel arms and gave the general impression that they were ready to take running to a whole new level.
But when the gun sounded, it looked like they were taking part in a famous Monty Python sketch - the Silly Olympiad, which included a race for people with no sense of direction.
Not all the robo-runners were able to ‘run’ in the right direction from the starting line, some didn’t move at all while one paused and then fell straight on its metal face, although it impressively stood up again courtesy of a clearly much-needed self-righting mechanism.
Two entrants from the Osaka University of Engineering’s teams got off to a shaky start and it was the Vstone droids that performed best, providing the eventual winner. (ANI)
