Hangzhou has launched a unique program for robots. The first group of 30 "robot students" enrolled at what is called the Hangzhou Robot School, hailing from industrial, service, and security sectors.

The school is a joint initiative by the Robotics Institute of Zhejiang University, the Zhejiang Institute of Quality Sciences, and leading industry enterprises. Here, robots undergo systematic "vocational skills" training to learn application skills for various scenarios and earn "skill certificates" before entering the workforce, transforming from "tech toys" into "practical tools."

Regarding admission requirements, Cai Jiandong, deputy director of the Robotics Institute of Zhejiang University, explained that before enrollment, robots must pass an "admission physical examination" covering hardware performance, functional integrity, and algorithm compatibility. The curriculum follows a human vocational education system, offering four specialized tracks: technical school, health school, art school, and sports school. Based on pre-enrollment test results and actual industry needs, training covers five dimensions: ethical safety, perception, motion performance, aesthetic expression, and scenario operation, comprehensively enhancing robots' overall capabilities.

Training duration varies for each "student," with personalized development plans tailored to individual needs. After training, robots undergo capability assessment by authoritative institutions before graduation to obtain a "specialized skill level certificate" — a passport to enter specific industries, marking the transition from "bare machine" to "product." Tong Fei, founder and CEO of Zhongcheng Yuanzheng Robotics Technology, expressed high expectations for sending his company's robot to the school: "The robot already has basic dance skills, and we hope learning will make its performances more human-like and movements smoother."

Why establish a dedicated school for robots? Zhu Shiqiang, dean of the Robotics Institute of Zhejiang University and founder of the school, was blunt — many domestic startups possess robots that can run steadily and jump high, but fail on the path from "bare machine" to "product." Despite urgent demand in industrial manufacturing, domestic services, and medical care, robots still struggle to enter homes and daily life on a large scale. "The problem lies in the lack of a brain capable of developing and adapting to scenarios," Zhu said.

For robot training, the "brain" is key. Zhu's team independently developed the "Wuji Brain" system, which adds a "logical reasoning layer" to the traditional vision-language-action architecture, building a complete cognitive loop. "Simply put, in the past, robots relied on memory to handle familiar scenarios but could not cope with unfamiliar ones. With the logical reasoning layer, robots can deduce physical laws, analyze task constraints, predict action consequences, and then make decisions," Zhu explained.

From "memorizing answers" to "solving problems" — this is the skill robots learn at Hangzhou Robot School. Among the first 30 robots, a guide robot named "Xiaoji" was a bare machine that could only run and jump half a month ago. After installing the "Wuji Brain," it learned tour guiding, greeting interactions, device operation, and multilingual communication. When facing random questions from unfamiliar visitors, it can understand intent, reason about situations, plan routes autonomously, and complete tours precisely. "What they receive is not just skill certification, but a set of ability genes for continuous learning," Zhu said. More importantly, through brain empowerment and agent integration, robots can continue learning and iterating after entering real-world scenarios.