Microduck

Tried out the simulator and was surprised to find that the movement keys are ZQSD; then realized that's the equivalent of WASD on an AZERTY keyboard. Checked and sure enough, Pollen Robotics is a French company.

They may want to at least add a preference for keyboard layout, pretty sure that QWERTY and QWERTZ are much more common worldwide than AZERTY.

I found a few open-source small bipedal robots on the internet. There are actually many open-source robots available:

[1]. https://robotics.umich.edu/news/2024/a-smaller-simpler-biped...

https://github.com/daviddoo02/Legolas-an-open-source-biped

[2].https://github.com/MuShibo/Micro-Wheeled_leg-Robot

[3].https://github.com/Yuexuan9/Tinker

Quadruped:

[1].https://github.com/stanfordroboticsclub/StanfordQuadruped

[2].https://open-dynamic-robot-initiative.github.io/

I still prefer (https://roboracer.ai/) 1:10 racing platform well known in academic circles as RoboRacer, F1TENTH, f1tenth, or F1/10.

Not sure many people know this - most of the robotics stuff that you see in the news is based on MujoCo (Multi-Joint dynamics with Contact) engine, that is used primarily to create simulated environments in which these robots learn the RL policies. This project is maintained by Google deepmind - https://github.com/google-deepmind/mujoco

Page is so dense, couldn't find the specs:

Rockchip RK3566 processor with an AI accelerator, 1GB RAM, 32GB storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microphones, speaker, two NFC antennas and removable battery (~1 hour runtime). Onboard policy loop: 50 hertz, Dynamixel servos, weight: 800g.

Seven behaviors at ship: walking, sitting and standing, kicking, ground pickup, roller skating and self-recovery, can train additional behaviors locally or through Hugging Face Jobs, export to ONNX and deploy through open-source runtime. Software: SDK, a MuJoCo-based simulator, training scripts, tools for transferring policies from simulation to the physical robot.

It's either this or https://mondorobotics.com/ and I'm torn. Obviously it's for my daughter and I will just be safety checking, definitely, 100%.

It's mega-cute, but I can't help feeling it's going to be used as free training for commercial robots.

What is really interesting for me is that they're not using Nvidia's Issac, which is famously impossible to get up and running for a custom robot by individual contributors. I can't tell how good their system is, but the fact that I got it running on my laptop in under an hour, vs wasting over a week of my spare time on Issac (ref: countless reddit threads by hundreds of people also failing to train their robot on Issac) gives me confidence I can finally convert my terrible IK stuff on my robot, to use this other framework.

This appears to be using mjlab, which is is MuJoCo Warp plus rsl_rl, which uses a completely different design/technology heritage from Issac, so that's worth a lot to me, since I've basically sworn off Issac for robot gait training.

Oh so this is why Nvidia (edit: trying to buy)/bought Hugging Face, $1B for all the ai sharing and stuff, and $12B for the duck!

It doesn't walk like a duck, but Reachy Mini by HF/Pollen Robotics is a great entry-level robot. And you get to assemble it!

Direct links: https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/ https://pollen-robotics.com/reachy-mini/

I like the big OPEN SOURCE words all over the place, but is the case and full part list open anywhere? I honestly couldnt spot them on github.

This actually seems awesome, just going through the video on their site made me burst out with 100 different ways in which I would tinker with it, spend time in learning different gaits, some RL or some tricks to have it jump or do a back flip

I can see some parallel between how arduino gave hobbyist a mini computer they can use in any way imaginable, I can see this kind of thing being used to solve unimaginable problems by hobbyist or RL computer scientist or heck any UG student with claude subscription

Waiting for robot vacuum cleaners to come with extension ports where you can add fun robot actuators.

Two things that I always contemplate on whether to post this: 1) this can be a phone. 2) almost all of these except Sony ones got joint geometries completely "wrong" to be cutemaxxed toys.

I'm not a Sony employee or anything, but theirs is whole next level even just sitting unpowered, compared to even some of other Japanese bots. Everyone making these cutebots should have one of any of Sony bots to study, even just as a dead kinetic sculpture.

for microduck I didn't find but their older reachy_miny was Apache 2.0 and hardware design files as Creative Commons BY-SA-NC

My wife would love one of these.

She's still bitter we didn't get the Sony dog a decade ago.

Surprised with the price, a similar form factor that I know of is even more expensive https://shop.xgorobot.com/products/xgo-rider-world-s-first-d...

(Chinese but since it's esp32 and raspberry pi it is possible to tinker with it)

I wonder what's the catch? Cheap IMU/motors?

this looks 100x better than Casio's https://www.casio.com/us/moflin/

Reminds me of Disney's robots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cfIm06tcfA

That page is… a lot, on mobile.

Here’s the tech specs page, which is also busy: https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/press-kit/

I've tried a few small robot kits and every single one fails the moment it reaches even moderately deep carpet. Either the size of motion doesn't clear the carpet or the motors aren't strong enough to deal with it. The living room is a small robots sand trap. Couldn't help but notice precious little carpet in any of the promo material. What's the point of a robot buddy if you cant play with it in the living room?

Does this work without an internet connection? It was unclear from the website.

Is there an app for Microduck, or is it currently controlled/programmed directly through the SDK? I’d be interested to know if there’s a mobile app for basic control and setup.

This is a dust magnet after the first few days of excitement. An expensive dust magent.

Hmm first I thought it’s just $400 but with shipping 30 and duties 80 it’s more like $510

Basic great usecase (not just fun things): IF you can control it remote, you can check your flat if you are gone for a little bit longer.

How much does it cost to train a new behaviour?

Why not foster a dog instead?

I have enough things to take care of in my life through training and reinforcement learning, but if you don’t - this might be for you! :)

Interesting that they're using Dynamixel instead of Feetech for the servos. More expensive but better quality. I'm surprised it still comes in under $400.

video was pure non-stop static

All AI images, a robot with no arms. Please improve on both. I will happily train one to pick things up and away with and after kids.

This looks really cool! The cuteness of the demo alone makes me want one. Ideally I would also love for it to have a real use case in my home but right now I really cant think of one.

wonder how it compares to https://github.com/apirrone/Open_Duck_Mini (besides being a lot easier to put together)

I couldn’t find hardware open source. If only I could 3d print and build it myself, that would be hell of a project.

that's so cute how it roller skates

Did anyone get programming in the simulator to work?

And why don't they show the video feed as seen by the camera?

Does it work locally? I don't want to have a camera robot in child's room

i wonder if this is the reason why those little dynamixel motors have been out of stock for months. (i use them in my robots at tapster.)

The Sony Aibo we never got

Perfect for kids; especially great that it doesn't come with a display by default.

Cute, and quite something if the sim-to-real pipeline is as smooth as we all might hope.

neat! since its written in rust, why not use https://github.com/eclipse-iceoryx/iceoryx2 for ipc?

It looks cool no doubt, but i would be concerned about privacy.

What is the battery life?

I think in the future we'll have robot pets and look back in horror at how we enslaved animals out of their natural habitats and normalized (even glorified) it.

what a nice platform, i would love this to patrole my house and have some fun.

I genuinely could not tell if this was a parody/satire or not, I think because the aesthetic reminds me of how a product like this would be presented in a horror movie or something

Trying to open the website turned my gaming laptop into a 747.

This has got to stop.

Made in China with a 500% markup. No thanks, I will wait for the Chinese version for less than $100.

AI is coming for pet market too.

I'm wanna train some to chase after turtles.

Now that Nvidia owns huggingface, I fear their days being able to support open source products are over.

thought this said something else at first

I hope it’s not built on ROS or rely on it in any way!

Also kudos for bringing the joy of robotics back, since now most companies are riding the “defense” bandwagon and all robot companies I know suddenly are defense companies and visiting their sites is like the most dystopian thing ever, making it harder to find contract/jobs for people who want to make robotics for good not killing machines.

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That is sick

Ugh, PAL only? I'll wait for the NTSC version.

It's not worth it if you can't have a swarm of them that debate philosophy in their off time.