Shandian completed the 21-kilometer (around 13-mile) course in Beijing’s Yizhuang district with a time of 50:26, while Lightning achieved a time of 48:19.
Both times were faster than the human record for the distance set by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, who ran a time of 57:20 at the Lisbon Half Marathon in March.
It’s for showing off the engineering. Lots of robotics competitions focus on different things (throwing balls, kicking soccer balls, moving fast), but BattleBots is definitely the one I’d be most worried about advancing a dangerous line of killer tech.
A humanoid bipedal foot race shows off balance, speed, power efficiency, and things like that.