The First National Robot Creative Design Contest was held on Sunday in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, with 12 products competing for championship.

The 12 finalists were selected out of 118 robots after preliminaries and semi-finals held late last year and early this month, according to Wang Shuguo, one of the judges and president of Xi'an Jiaotong University.

An intelligent anchor protecting robot for use in mines, jointly created by Taiyuan Research Institute of China Coal Technology and Engineering Group and Xi'an Jiaotong University, won the championship. Two products were named runner-ups and another 8 took the third spot.

The contest was sponsored by Shaanxi Provincial Department of Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University and Shaanxi Robot Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance, to guide enterprises, scientific and educational researchers, university students as well as common people to take part in the research and development of intelligent robot technology and products, and to provide advice and suggestions to the development of robot industry.

The contest attracted more than 600 contestants from 16 provinces and 35 universities from all across the country and 118 robot products were selected.

The creative robots in the contest concentrated in the fields of medical service, emergency rescue, manufacturing service and industrial application and the creative designs of the robots related to mechanics, mechanics, electronics, control theory, computer science and other professional knowledge, which will play a positive role to promote interdisciplinary and construction of disciplines in universities and research institutes, Wang said.