Pollen Robotics launches Microduck, a $399 open-source biped, preorders open
Pollen Robotics has announced Microduck, a 25 cm, 800 g open-source bipedal robot at $399 (introductory price, before tax and shipping), with preorders opening 27 August 2026.
The facts
- 15 servos, a Rockchip RK3566, a camera, a depth sensor and two IMUs
- 50 Hz onboard policy inference — every move comes from a reinforcement learning policy, not a recorded sequence
- Seven trained moves in the box: walking, sit and stand, kicking, grabbing, roller skating, getting back up
- The box holds the robot, a battery, a USB-C cable and a game controller
- Four colourways, plus three optional packs ($39 / $119 / $39)
Why this one is worth noticing
Bipeds at this price are not new. What is different is that the entire reinforcement learning sim2real pipeline is open, under Apache-2.0:
- pollen-robotics/microduck — the robot’s own software, a set of Rust daemons
- pollen-robotics/microduck_rl — MuJoCo Warp and PPO, with domain randomisation, BAM actuator modelling and backlash simulation
Which means you can train a policy, point a config file at your .onnx, restart a daemon, and it is running — no release to cut, no firmware to flash. That is uncommon at this price.
Note the scope: the open-source statement covers the software stack. The mechanical and electronic design files are not included.
The Hugging Face connection
Pollen Robotics was acquired by Hugging Face in 2025. The stated direction is making robot behaviours easier for developers to share and reproduce — which fits, given the behaviours are .onnx files and Hugging Face Hub is a distribution platform for exactly that shape of artifact.
Training already runs on Hugging Face Jobs: add --hf-jobs to a training command and no local GPU is needed.
Delivery
First deliveries target before Christmas 2026, covering North America, Europe and the UK.