But the robots had other plans. During soccer matches, four mechanical players crashed into each other and collapsed in a tangled heap of metal limbs.

More or less human-like robots played soccer, table tennis, ran, danced and, often, fell over at the kickoff of the first humanoid robot games in China.More than 500 humanoid robots in 280 teams from 16 countries are competing in 26 events ranging from soccer and boxing to sorting medicine and cleaning up at the first World Humanoid Robot Games.