Hugging Face offers $399 robot duck to help you quack the AI code

Hugging Face subsidiary Pollen Robotics introduces the Microduck robot, a 25 cm tall, 800 gram tiny robot designed to help users build, train, and deploy AI on real hardware. The robot, available for $399, comes with an open-source software stack covering robot control, simulation, reinforcement learning training, and sim-to-real deployment.

Microduck demonstrates its capabilities by picking up socks and a marker with its beak, placing them in a box, and navigating using a LiDAR unit. It will ship with 1 GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, and a 50 Hz policy loop for connecting AI to sensors. Users can train new behaviors in simulation and transfer them to Microduck, which can handle a wide range of tasks.

Microduck can self-right when knocked over and roller skate using optional wheeled feet. While Nvidia is rumored to be acquiring Pollen Robotics, the Microduck maker itself remains open to community contributions for achieving autonomous behaviors like voice recognition, localization, navigation, and grasping.