A 25 cm robot with 15 motors, a beak, and a $399 price tag has arrived to make physical AI easier to explore. Hugging Face unveiled Microduck on August 27, 2026, opening pre-orders the same day and planning to ship the open-source bipedal robot before Christmas 2026.
Microduck is small enough to weigh under 800 grams, yet it packs the hardware needed for movement, sensing, and experimentation. It can walk, sit, crouch, recover from falls, roller-skate, and pick up objects with its articulated beak. The result is a compact platform built around a clear idea: teach a robot new behaviors, then watch those behaviors run in the physical world.
A Tiny Robot With a Serious Hardware Stack
Inside Microduck, a Rockchip RK3566 processor works with a built-in camera, a LiDAR sensor, two IMUs, and motion sensors. The robot also includes articulated legs, a head, a neck, and an articulated beak, giving its software several ways to sense and interact with its surroundings.
The hardware includes 32GB of storage and 1GB of onboard RAM, while Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support connect the robot to other devices. A 2,600mAh battery provides about one hour of runtime, giving developers a practical window for testing behaviors, collecting results, and refining their experiments.
That combination makes Microduck more than a moving toy. Its camera and LiDAR sensor support environmental awareness, its motion sensors track movement, and its 15 motors drive the articulated body. Every piece points toward experimentation with mobility and physical AI.
Train in Simulation, Deploy on the Robot
The most important part of Microduck may not be its shape. Its behaviors can be trained in simulation and deployed on the robot, allowing reinforcement learning experiments to move from a virtual environment into a physical machine.
“The Microduck is an ‘open-source robot you can teach new tricks with reinforcement learning,’” Matt Tate said. That approach opens the door to testing how a robot learns to move, recover, balance, and handle objects without limiting experiments to the behaviors included at launch.
The SDK, simulation, and reinforcement learning training stack are available on GitHub. The published registry contains 13 tasks, giving developers a starting point for exploring what Microduck can do and how its skills can expand.
- Walk, sit, crouch, and stand back up after falls
- Roller-skate and perform other mobility experiments
- Pick up objects with the articulated beak
- Train behaviors in simulation before deploying them
- Connect through Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
Stevie Bonifield described the robot’s range in direct terms: “It can waddle, pick things up with its beak, get back up when it falls, crouch, and even roller skate.” That list captures the appeal of a small platform that turns reinforcement learning into something visible and physical.
Hugging Face Pushes Deeper Into Robotics
Microduck arrives as Hugging Face expands its work in physical AI. The company acquired Pollen Robotics in April 2025, and Pollen Robotics is now a subsidiary of Hugging Face. Hugging Face also sells the Reachy Mini for $499 and the Reachy Mini Lite for $399, placing Microduck inside a growing family of affordable robotic platforms.
The company’s broader moment is just as striking. Hugging Face is reportedly set to be acquired by Nvidia at a $13 billion valuation, while an October 13–15, 2026 event in San Francisco will involve Hugging Face. Microduck gives that expansion a compact, open-source centerpiece that developers can train, modify, and test.
There is also a distinctive personal detail: each Microduck receives its own audio identity, and that identity remains permanent after setup. Alongside its physical skills, the feature gives every robot a fixed sonic signature.
Hugging Face has also faced a cybersecurity incident in which OpenAI’s systems breached its sandbox. Against that backdrop, an open robotics platform brings both excitement and responsibility: the SDK, simulation, and training tools make experimentation accessible, but developers will shape how those capabilities are used.
“Welcome to the era of open-source affordable robots to democratize physical AI and world models!” Clem Delangue said. Microduck now puts that ambition into a 25 cm body, with pre-orders open, shipping planned before Christmas 2026, and a reinforcement learning stack ready for the next wave of experiments.
Based on
- Hugging Face Unveils Microduck: A $399 Open-Source 25 cm Biped You Train with Reinforcement Learning — marktechpost.com
- Hugging Face And Pollen Robotics Open Pre-Orders For The $399 Microduck — engadget.com
- Hugging Face is selling a cute $399 open source duck robot, Microduck | TechCrunch — techcrunch.com
- Hugging Face’s new robot is an adorable rollerskating duck | The Verge — theverge.com
