Three young men from Central China's Henan province started building robots modeled after characters from the Hollywood blockbuster Transformers. Originally for fun, they found their creations valuable – their first creation, a 3-meter-high robot made of recycled auto parts, sold for 10,000 yuan ($1,635).

Despite lacking funds and support from their families, the "Transformers" fanatics have sold more than 100 robots and made more than 600,000 yuan (around $98,000).

The young entrepreneurs are still looking into the future.

"We plan to apply more high technology to robots and create robots that can move," said Shen Liukai, one of the builders.