Hangzhou Robot School opens, the first batch of 30 robots receive vocational skills training

The first batch of 30 ‘new students’ received practical training in different subjects and took up their posts with certificates——

There is a robot school in Hangzhou (new life, new experience)

Not long ago, a special opening ceremony was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province - the first batch of 30 "robot students" registered for enrollment. They come from different fields such as industry, services, and security. Among the "parents" are representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises as well as relevant departments and units.

This is the ‘Hangzhou Robot School’ jointly created by the Robotics Research Institute of Zhejiang University, the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Quality Sciences and industry leading companies. Here, robots will receive systematic 'vocational skills' training, learn application skills in various scenarios, obtain 'skill certificates' and then go to work, realizing the transformation from 'technological toys' to 'practical tools'.

Let’s talk about the admission requirements first. Cai Jiandong, deputy director of the Zhejiang University Robotics Research Institute, said that before admission, robots must first pass the ‘entrance physical examination’ – undergoing comprehensive testing in terms of hardware performance, functional integrity, algorithm compatibility, etc.

Looking at the class schedule, the school refers to the human vocational education system and has four professional directions: technical school, health school, art school, and sports school. Based on the test results before admission and in conjunction with the actual needs of industrial implementation, the school implements subject-specific training. The training subjects cover the five dimensions of ethics and safety, perception ability, sports performance, aesthetic tension, and scene practice to comprehensively improve the comprehensive literacy of robots.

The training time for each 'student' is different. The school teaches students according to their aptitude and develops a personalized training plan for each robot. After training, the robot will participate in an authoritative organization's ability assessment before graduation and obtain a 'special skill level certificate' - this certificate is a passport to enter a specific industry, which means that the robot has completed the leap from 'bare metal' to 'product'.

Tong Fei, founder and CEO of Zhongcheng Native Robot Technology Co., Ltd., is looking forward to sending his children to school: "The robot already has basic dance skills, and I hope that through learning, the robot's performance will be more human-like and its movements will be smoother." ’

Why open a specialized school for robotics? Zhu Shiqiang, dean of the Robotics Research Institute of Zhejiang University and the founder of the school, is outspoken about this - a large number of domestic start-up companies are holding onto bodies that can run steadily and jump high, but they have fallen on the road from "bare metal" to "product". Because of this, despite the urgent demand in industrial manufacturing, domestic services, medical care and other scenarios, it is still difficult for robots to enter homes and daily life on a large scale. ‘The problem lies in the brain’s lack of ability to develop adaptations to the situation. ’ Zhu Shiqiang said.

When training robots, the ‘brain’ is the key. Zhu Shiqiang’s team independently developed the ‘Boundless Brain’. This system adds a ‘logical reasoning layer’ to the traditional visual-language-action architecture to build a complete cognitive closed loop. Zhu Shiqiang said: 'In layman's terms, in the past, robots relied on memory to deal with scenes. They could handle familiar scenes, but they couldn't handle unfamiliar ones. After adding the logical reasoning layer, the robot can deduce physical laws, analyze task constraints, predict the consequences of actions, and then make decisions. ’

From ‘memorizing answers’ to ‘solving problems’, at Hangzhou Robot School, this is the skill that robots need to learn.

Among the first batch of 30 robots enrolled, the guidance robot ‘Xiaoji’ was a bare machine that could only run and jump half a month ago. After being installed with the ‘Boundless Brain’, it has learned skills such as tour guides, welcome interactions, equipment control, and multi-language communication. Faced with random questions from stranger visitors, it can understand intentions, reason about the situation, plan its own route, and accurately complete the tour.

‘What they get is not only skill certification, but also a set of ability genes for sustainable learning. ’ Zhu Shiqiang said that what is even more valuable is that through brain empowerment and intelligent agent integration, the robot can continue to learn and iterate after entering a real scene. (Reporter Dou Hanyang)