A standout sketch at the 2026 China Media Group (CMG) Spring Festival Gala aired Monday brought together human actors and an ensemble of robotic performers in a heartwarming fusion of cutting-edge technology and family storytelling.
Titled "Grandma's Favorite," the sketch featured everything from playful robots performing backflips to a strikingly lifelike bionic "fake grandma" that left audiences amazed.
The lifelike bionic robot was developed by Noetix Robotics, a Beijing-based humanoid robotics company. Engineers began by creating a 3D model of the face of the sketch actress Cai Ming and capturing detailed facial expression data. Dozens of prototypes were tested, varying silicone materials, skin textures, and makeup techniques,to ensure the robot's appearance perfectly matched the actress'.
"During early rehearsals, young performers passing by the fake grandma would greet her. She just sat there, looking very proud, ignoring everyone, but her eyes moved. She just sat like this. Everyone thought it was me," Cai said while mimicking the robot's blinking posture. "Everyone thought it was me," she said.
They encountered two major technical challenges when creating the bionic robot: the extreme complexity of integrating a lifelike facial structure within a compact space, and the need for precise algorithmic control.
The "fake grandma" features 40 degrees of freedom in its head and is powered by proprietary facial expression algorithms and a multimodal interaction model.
"We applied our newly developed D2P technology in the bionic robot, which maps digital human movements from virtual simulations to the actual motor angles of the robot. This allows it to mimic any mouth shape and achieve perfect one-to-one synchronization between speech and lip movement," said Jiang Zheyuan, founder and chairman of Noetix Robotics.
Another robotic star of the show, a clever and endearing character named "Bumi," is the world's first high-performance humanoid robot priced under 10,000 yuan (about 1,447 U.S. dollars). Standing 94 cm tall and weighing around 12 kg, it has 21 degrees of freedom. The robot was launched for pre-sale in October 2025, less than a month before its team received the invitation to perform at the gala.
"At first, Bumi walked like it was ready to pick a fight, like it had drunk too much. We adjusted it step by step, tuned the algorithm move by move. Gradually, it became steadier and steadier, more and more like a little child. So many people have come to love Bumi," Cai said.
A pair of "twin" robots performing backflips and cartwheels in the sketch, Noetix's N2 robots, were the runners-up in the Beijing E-Town half-marathon and humanoid robots half-marathon in April 2025 and champions of the floor exercise event at the first World Humanoid Robot Games.
"Events like robot competitions and the Spring Festival Gala provide the best possible stage for humanoid robotics companies. They push the industry from simple task execution toward a closed loop of perception, decision-making, and action, making robots smarter, more reliable, and safer. Ultimately, this will enable them to better serve our daily lives and work," said Li Yechuan, director of the Intelligent Manufacturing and Equipment Industry Division of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology.
The dance sequence at the sketch's conclusion underwent numerous revisions, and the robots' movements were refined countless times. Yet one final pose remained unchanged, a moment many viewers recognized as a tribute to a classic 30-year-old Spring Festival Gala sketch, "Robot Tales," in which younger Cai Ming played a robot herself.
Bionic grandma, robot stars behind 2026's hit sketch
