MICRODUCK - PRESS FACT SHEET
Pollen Robotics, the Bordeaux-based robotics team at Hugging Face
Press contact: contact@pollen-robotics.com


THE ONE-LINER

Microduck is a 25 cm tall biped robot, playful and educational, made by
Pollen Robotics, the Bordeaux-based robotics team at Hugging Face. Their
second consumer robot, after Reachy Mini. It walks with a waddle, sits,
crouches, roller-skates, picks objects up with its beak and gets back on
its feet from many common fall positions.


FAST FACTS

- 15 motors
- 25 cm tall, 14 cm wide
- Under 800 g
- Camera, plus LiDAR and two IMUs
- 7 trained moves in the box
- 50 Hz onboard policy loop
- Open-source software stack: virtual training environments, RL training
  scripts and tools, and a tested sim-to-real workflow, released before
  the first robots ship


LAUNCH

- Pre-orders open August 27, 2026
- $399 before taxes and shipping (introductory price)
- First deliveries targeted before Christmas 2026
- Markets: North America and Europe at launch


PRICING AND PACKS

- Microduck - $399 - robot, battery, USB-C cable, game controller
- Charger pack - $39 - dual charger, 2x batteries
- Dev pack - $119 - 3x spare motors, 5x motor cables, 2x batteries,
  dual charger, 10x NFC tags, Hugging Face credit, screwdriver,
  screw pack
- Accessory pack - $39 - laser pointer, NFC polaroid, 2x rollers,
  ball, 10x NFC tags


COLOURWAYS

Four printed colourways at launch - same robot underneath. Hex values are
the calibrated shell colours from the press photos.

- Cream (#f7e6cb): cream shells, orange trim and beak
- Graphite (#6c6a68): graphite shells, yellow trim and beak
- Lavender (#bfa9cf): lavender shells, yellow trim and beak
- Sky (#a9dbe8): sky-blue shells, orange trim and beak


KEY SPECIFICATIONS

- Motors: 15 degrees of freedom, across articulated legs, head and neck
- Dimensions: 25 cm tall, 14 cm wide
- Weight: under 800 g
- Compute: Rockchip RK3566 with AI accelerator
- Memory: 1 GB RAM, 32 GB storage
- Vision: front camera, with a dedicated camera-use indicator inspired by
  classic REC lights
- Motion sensing: 2 IMUs, one in the body and one in the head
- Range sensing: compact LiDAR, an 8x8 time-of-flight matrix
- Physical interaction: articulated grasping beak
- Audio: microphones and speaker, with a per-robot generated voice
- NFC: 2 antennas, one in the head and one in the beak
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
- Battery: removable NP-F550 camera battery, 2600 mAh, around one hour of
  runtime depending on use
- In the box: game controller, playable before writing any code, plus
  autonomous behaviours at launch
- Software: open-source SDK with virtual training environments, RL
  training scripts and tools, and a tested sim-to-real workflow, released
  before the first robots ship

Not final yet: camera resolution and field of view, LiDAR range, radio
versions and SDK languages, and any age recommendation. Microduck's
software stack is open source; the mechanical and electronic design files
are not covered by that statement, so please do not describe the robot as
open-source hardware.


BOILERPLATE (paste-ready)

About Microduck
Microduck is a 25 cm biped robot with 15 motors, a camera, LiDAR and a
grasping beak. It is playable out of the box, and its open-source
software stack lets you train new behaviours in simulation and run them
on the robot. Pre-orders open at $399, with first deliveries targeted
before Christmas 2026.

About Pollen Robotics
Pollen Robotics builds open-source robots from Bordeaux, France. Founded
in 2016 by former Inria researchers, the team joined Hugging Face in
April 2025 and is its robotics team. Microduck is their second consumer
robot, after Reachy Mini.


IN THIS KIT

- FACT-SHEET.txt - this document
- PHOTOS/ - the launch shoot, full-quality JPG originals (including the
  team portrait)
- STICKERS/ - the sheet's 36 die-cut stickers (QUACK, BANG, BOOM, bolts,
  stars, flames and friends) as transparent PNGs
- BRAND/ - the Microduck wordmark (PNG with transparency + vector SVG).
  The wordmark carries its own outline, so it sits on a light or a dark
  background as it is - please leave its colours and proportions alone.

The stickers are free to use in any story about Microduck.


LINKS

- GitHub (SDK, simulation environment and RL training stack):
  https://github.com/pollen-robotics/microduck
- Discord (Pollen Robotics community):
  https://discord.com/invite/pollen-community-519098054377340948


PRESS CONTACT

Interviews, review units, extra assets: contact@pollen-robotics.com
