These guys sure know how to party. In what is officially the biggest robot dance-off of all time, over 1,000 machines got jiggy last week to a synchronized routine as part of a Guinness World Record-breaking event.
In China’s city of Guangzhou, 1,069 robots lined up as part of WL Intelligent Technology Co. Ltd’s attempt to break the world record. Standing in the square, the robo-army demonstrated the company’s latest technology with great success. Well, almost — some of the bots fell over in the process and were excluded from the final tally.
The robot itself is called Dobi, a humanoid machine that retails for just over $200, weighs nearly five pounds and stands at 1 foot, 5 inches tall. The voice-controlled machine supports a number of functions, like dance and move, with each of its 17 digital servos controlled individually. The bot can communicate wirelessly with a smartphone app, meaning users can come up with their own moves for the bot and recreate the world record attempt.
A photo of the Dobi from its side
The record is slowly developing into a tradition among Chinese robot manufacturers. The initial record holder, back in April 2016, was UBTECH Robotics Corp. The company used 540 “Alpha 1S” programmable robots to complete a full routine backed by Chinese singer Sun Nan at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in Shenzhen. The event was part of an annual variety event watched by around 700 million people. The robots weighed just over three pounds and stood just over a foot tall.
UBTECH didn’t hold onto the record for long, though. Just four months later, Ever Win Company, Ltd. nearly doubled the record by getting 1,007 “QCR-2” robots to simultaneously dance at the Qingdao Beer Festival in Shandong. All the robots were controlled from a single smartphone, and the team used a special encryption to prevent radio interference during the minute-long performance.
Rock on, little robots.
