Beijing Yizhuang Creates a Robot Half-Marathon Pre-Training Practice Field to Enhance Technical and Scenario Application Skills

On March 8th, the opening ceremony for the 2026 Beijing Yizhuang Humanoid Robot Half Marathon and the “Batulu” Robot Challenge Training Camp was held in Beijing Yizhuang. Photo by Chen Hang

China News Service Beijing, March 8 — On March 8th, the opening ceremony for the 2026 Beijing Yizhuang Humanoid Robot Half Marathon and the “Batulu” Robot Challenge Training Camp took place in Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone (also known as “Beijing Economic Zone” or “Beijing Yizhuang”). At the event, the first batch of developers officially joined the nation’s first full-stack embodied intelligence robot developer community, marking the first practical training implementation of Beijing Yizhuang’s comprehensive innovation development model that includes “professional training + supply-demand matching + proof of concept + product prototyping + application demonstration.”

Creating a Pre-competition Practice Ground

This training camp is organized by the country’s first full-stack embodied intelligence robot developer community — Future Machine Domain Embodied Intelligence Robot Developer Community (referred to as Future Machine Domain Developer Community). It aims to prepare for the 2026 Beijing Yizhuang Humanoid Robot Half Marathon and the “Batulu” Robot Challenge, providing free pre-competition training for top developers worldwide.

Since registration and online training began in January this year, nearly 40 students have been selected for the offline practical training phase. The camp focuses on hands-on practice, high-standard event management, and full ecological empowerment. Courses are supported by the Future Machine Domain Developer Community, inviting experts with extensive experience in control systems, perception algorithms, and system integration. The training emphasizes robot control, motion algorithm optimization, obstacle handling, and collaborative rescue operations, with participant selection based on attendance and performance evaluations.

The composition of the training camp participants reflects a deep integration of industry, academia, research, and application, including young scholars and students from Beijing Jiaotong University, Hebei University of Technology, as well as technical backbone members from tech companies like Baidu and Amap; core R&D staff from unicorn companies like Songyan Power; and application experts from institutions such as the 301 Hospital and the National Rehabilitation Center.

Liang Nan, Ecosystem Project Operations Director of Beijing Yizhuang Robot Technology Industry Development Co., Ltd., stated that the training camp will ultimately select over 10 high-quality teams to participate in the Beijing Yizhuang Humanoid Robot Marathon and “Batulu” Robot Challenge on April 19. Selected teams will receive comprehensive support from the Future Machine Domain Developer Community, including free access to laboratories and robot hardware for training, one-on-one mentorship, subsidies for competition materials, and industry and capital matchmaking.

It is reported that the 2026 Beijing Yizhuang Humanoid Robot Half Marathon will be held on the same day as the Beijing Yizhuang Half Marathon, adopting a “human-machine co-run” mode, where human runners and humanoid robots start simultaneously on the same track, separated by barriers or greenery. The humanoid robot half marathon will feature autonomous navigation and remote control groups, competing in a mixed timing format.

Building an Emergency Rescue Practice Scenario

Last year, Beijing Yizhuang successfully hosted the world’s first humanoid robot half marathon; this year, the event has been fully upgraded and a new IP, the “Batulu” Challenge, has been launched. The event theme is “Yiqi·Smart Aid — Making Technology the Guardian of Life,” focusing on emergency rescue training scenarios for natural disasters. It features 17 challenges across four categories: general, humanoid-specific, quadruped robot-specific, and additional challenges, testing robots’ capabilities in rubble traversal, material transport, and other emergency tasks, creating an integrated platform for technical training, event preparation, and science popularization.

A highlight of the event is the realistic simulation of outdoor obstacle scenarios, replicating outdoor environmental variables to ensure high consistency between competition and real-world applications. Participating teams will receive full-cycle support, including validation of technical results, expert feedback, industry resource connections, and collaboration opportunities for implementation.

A relevant official from the Beijing Yizhuang Robot and Intelligent Manufacturing Industry Bureau said that this training camp is a key step in powering the event and cultivating talent for the industry.

Through the dual drive of training camps and competitions, the initiative aims to gather cross-disciplinary talent, fostering robot teams with both technical and application skills; promote humanoid robots in emergency rescue scenarios during natural disasters; and strengthen regional ecological clustering through deep integration of industry, academia, and research.

Next, Beijing Yizhuang will continue to provide comprehensive ecological support, implement embodied intelligence social experiments, build the Robofuture event system, fully open Yizhuang’s real-world scenarios, and create a city-level industrial incubator driven by scenarios and applications. This will attract developers from individuals, universities, and companies for secondary development, accelerate the transformation and scaling of robotic achievements, and promote the transition of robots from laboratories to various industries and households. (End)

(Edited by: Wen Jing)

Keywords: