A Chinese robot became the unexpected star in an international kite festival. At the beginning of the festival, the robot held the string (线) of a kite flying in the sky and made up-and-down movements. The show lasted for 20 minutes and drew crowds of visitors to take photos.

The robot in the international festival is a good example of human-like robots. In recent years, human-like running robots have greatly improved and surprised the world. This year, a robot from a Chinese company broke the men’s record for the half-marathon (半程马拉松). In another event, a robot, also from a Chinese company, came close to the men’s 100-meter world record.

Robots are not just for flying a kite or running in competitions. They are also helping on farms. Picking tomatoes is tiring work for humans. Now farming robots can help with it. The robots first get information about the tomatoes on their own. The information is about whether the tomatoes are ripe (成熟的) or not and whether there is any tomato hidden behind leaves. With the information, the robots can work out the most effective way to pick the fruit. When picking tomatoes, the robots must choose ripe tomatoes and leave unripe ones untouched.

There are many reasons for the rapid improvement of robots in recent years. The cost of building robots has fallen a lot. New computer chips allow machines to perform better. With the development of technology, robots are playing an increasingly important role in everyday life.