Visible dents appeared in a lab wall after Booster Robotics' T1 humanoid fired soccer balls into a goal setup in a YouTube demo designed to showcase the robot's kicking power.
The Beijing-based T1 stands 3 feet 10 inches tall, weighs about 66 pounds and is built as a developer platform for schools, labs and robotics teams training motion and behavior models.
Soccer testing is used to push humanoids on balance, recovery and split-second decision-making, with Booster also offering RoboCup-focused tools for perception, localization and match play.
That wall damage also sharpens the safety debate: a robot strong enough to dent drywall would need strict force limits, emergency stops and tightly controlled operating rules before working near the public.
Booster says more than 50 robotics teams and research institutes already use the platform, underscoring how robot soccer is doubling as a proving ground for broader humanoid applications.