Microduck is a 25 cm bipedal robot from Pollen Robotics, the Bordeaux-based robotics team at Hugging Face, built to learn physical behaviors through reinforcement learning. Fifteen motors, a camera, LiDAR and a grasping beak let it walk, pick up objects and stand back up after a fall. Pre-orders sit at $399 before taxes, game controller included. Developers, teachers and robotics tinkerers are the main audience, though the bundled moves make it playable on day one.
Microduck ships with seven pre-trained behaviors, including walking, kicking a ball, grabbing with its beak, roller-skating and self-recovery. You push the stick on the bundled controller, the duck waddles over to a stray sock and picks it up. It also follows a laser pointer and reacts to NFC-tagged accessories.
Each robot generates its own voice on first boot and keeps it for life (no two ducks quack alike, a strangely endearing touch). Four shells exist, Cream, Graphite, Lavender and Sky, with the same mechanics underneath.
The full software stack is open source, from the SDK to the reinforcement learning code published on GitHub. Behaviors are trained in the MuJoCo physics simulator, then moved onto the real robot with a documented sim-to-real recipe. One or two hours on a GPU produce a usable gait, and Hugging Face Jobs handles the job if you lack a graphics card. Releasing an entire training pipeline this way remains rare, even among AI projects on GitHub.
The approach extends Reachy Mini, the desktop robot from the same team, which has shipped more than 10,000 units. Where its sibling talks, Microduck walks, falls and tries again, and its 800 grams keep experiments safe at home or in class. As for the parent company, Pollen Robotics joined Hugging Face, itself bought by Nvidia in a 12.9 billion dollar deal.
The base kit costs $399 before taxes and shipping, covering the robot, a removable battery rated for roughly one hour, a USB-C cable and a controller. Demand ran hot from the start, with pre-orders passing one million dollars within hours of launch. Since figures like these move as production ramps up, check the official store before committing.
| Pack | What is inside |
|---|---|
| Base kit | Robot, battery, USB-C cable, gamepad |
| Play pack | Laser pointer, two rollers, ball, NFC tags |
| Battery pack | Two batteries and a dual charger |
| Spare parts pack | Three spare motors, cables, batteries, charger, screwdriver |
$399 before taxes and shipping for the base kit, which includes the robot, a battery and a game controller. Optional accessory and spare parts packs are sold separately, and bulk pricing kicks in from ten units for schools, labs and companies.
The software is, entirely. The SDK, simulation and reinforcement learning stack are published on GitHub for anyone to read, fork and retrain. The mechanical and electronic design files are not open, and Pollen Robotics asks that the robot not be described as open source hardware.
Four to six months is the current estimate for new orders, shipped first ordered, first served. The earliest buyers were targeted for delivery before Christmas, but heavy demand stretched the queue and the company says production is ramping up.
Reachy Mini focuses on conversation and expressiveness on a desk, while Microduck is all about movement, from walking to falling to reinforcement learning. Both share the same open philosophy at Pollen Robotics. Pick the first for a talking companion, the second for training physical behaviors.
Verdict: For under $400, tinkerers, teachers and robotics labs get a physical AI testbed engineered to fall and pick itself back up. Anyone after a chatty desk companion will find Reachy Mini waiting at the same maker.
