HuggingFace and Pollen Robotics open pre-orders for the $399 Microduck
Hugging Face and its subsidiary Pollen Robotics have opened pre-orders for Microduck, a small duck-inspired bipedal robot designed for developers and robotics enthusiasts. Unlike the stationary Reachy Mini, Microduck prioritises movement and experimentation, allowing users to explore how AI-enabled robots navigate obstacles, recover from falls and interact physically with their surroundings.
The $399 robot is 25cm tall, weighs under 800g and has 15 motors, a camera, LiDAR, two motion sensors and an articulated beak that can pick up objects. It can walk, crouch, sit, recover from common falls and roller-skate; its open-source software includes development tools and reinforcement-learning support. Microduck has 32GB storage, 1GB RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and roughly one hour of continuous battery life, with initial US deliveries targeted before Christmas.
- Hugging Face is selling a $399 duck-inspired mobile robot.
- Microduck targets AI and robotics experimentation.
- First US orders are expected before Christmas.
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Hugging Face is a platform for sharing artificial intelligence tools and models, while Pollen Robotics makes robots and is part of Hugging Face. Both companies work on technology that developers and researchers can adapt and experiment with.
Robots that move through the physical world need to sense their surroundings and respond to changes, such as obstacles or a fall. Microduck is designed as a small platform for exploring these challenges, with sensors and software that users can work with. Its open-source tools let developers inspect and modify parts of how it operates.