Hugging Face’s robot duck is already a hit

PLUS: ICE to spend $2M on robot dogs

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Jennifer Mossalgue, Rowan Cheung, Shubham Sharma & Zach Mink
August 31, 2026

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Hugging Face’s $399 Microduck waddles, roller-skates, and gets back up after a shove — and pulled in $2.6M in orders on day one.

Behind the cute shell is an open-source reinforcement-learning stack that brings programmable biped robotics down from $13K research hardware to less than a phone.

Also today: ICE’s multimillion-dollar robot-dog plans and Meta putting robots to work inside its data centers.

In today’s robotics rundown:

  • Hugging Face’s cute open-source duck robot

  • ICE is adding robot dogs to its arsenal

  • Meta’s data centers are becoming robot test labs

  • This robot swarm builds from the top down

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

HUGGING FACE

Image source: Hugging Face

The Rundown: Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics just opened pre-orders for Microduck, a $399 bipedal robot that walks, carries objects in its beak, falls over, and picks itself back up — with its entire reinforcement-learning stack posted on GitHub.

The details:

  • Built by Hugging Face’s France-based Pollen Robotics team, Microduck packs 15 motors, a camera, LiDAR, two motion sensors, microphones, and a speaker.

  • Out of the box, it can perform seven behaviors, including recovering from falls and picking things up; optional wheels let it roller-skate.

  • The SDK, simulator, and reinforcement-learning stack are open source under Apache 2.0, letting owners modify and share new behaviors.

  • Preorders opened at $399 and topped $2.6M in the first 24 hours; demand has pushed estimated delivery for new orders to around four to six months.

Why it matters: The duck is cute, but the pitch underneath is that cheap programmable hardware is how developers get into physical AI. Pollen has already sold 10K+ Reachy Minis, and with Nvidia reportedly agreeing to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B, Microduck adds another accessible piece of hardware to its serious robotics push.

BOSTON DYNAMICS

Image source: Boston Dynamics

The Rundown: ICE is preparing to spend up to $2M on Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot dogs, adding the four-legged machines to its enforcement arsenal for what it says will handle inspections, surveillance, and hazardous operations.

The details:

  • The notice, posted to DHS’s Acquisition Planning Forecast System, values the buy at $1M to $2M for Spot units and accessories.

  • ICE says the remotely operated robots will handle inspection, situational awareness, and hazard assessment in dangerous, hard-to-reach locations.

  • DHS’s own equipment guide prices a public-safety Spot package at ~$250K, with cameras, thermal imaging, a robotic arm, and roughly 90 minutes of battery life.

  • Spot isn’t new to law enforcement: LAPD, NYPD, and the Secret Service have deployed it, while Boston Dynamics explicitly bans weaponizing its robots.

Why it matters: ICE is looking to add the machines amid a much bigger expansion: the agency has ~$113B at its disposal through 2029, arrested nearly 50K people in July, and just awarded $16.7M for 6K electric-shock gloves, making robot dogs one piece of a quickly growing enforcement arsenal.

META

Image source: Images 2.0 / The Rundown

The Rundown: Meta is testing robots to do the grunt work inside its data centers, from swapping cables and resetting servers to inspecting hardware — all work that has long belonged to human technicians, Wired reports.

The details:

  • At Meta’s Altoona, Iowa, campus, dual-armed robots from startup Watney have been testing data-center cabling, though humans still supervise them.

  • Meta is also experimenting with Kinova robotic arms for power-cycling servers and ABB mobile robots that can reseat components.

  • Self-driving robots move server racks, inventory bots patrol facilities, and one device acts as a remote-controlled finger for pressing restart buttons.

  • One Meta worker reportedly estimated a successful cable-swapping bot could eventually handle up to 80% of some technicians’ current workload.

Why it matters: The robots are slower than people and, Wired reports, can’t yet handle GB300-class cabling, while Meta insists it still needs more skilled workers. But with Q2 capex hitting $31.1B, automation could reshape the economics of its data-center buildout, including the jobs communities have used to justify lucrative tax breaks.

FOSTER + PARTNERS

Image source: Foster + Partners

The Rundown: UK design firm Foster + Partners joined a European research project building a robot swarm that assembles timber buildings roof-first, with each floor built at ground level, then hoisted to clear room for the next.

The details:

  • Dubbed SWIFT-BUILD, the 3-year project has landed nearly €4M (~$4.6M) from the European Innovation Council; 7 universities are partnering on the project.

  • Instead of sending machines higher as a building grows, robots assemble a floor at ground level, lift it into the air, then build the next level underneath.

  • Ground-based assemblers and lifting robots will work as a coordinated swarm, while drones monitor the build from above.

  • The team ultimately plans to have the system construct a multi-story timber pavilion, designed so components can later be taken apart and reused.

Why it matters: Construction robots are starting to move beyond automating single jobs: Cosmic and ABB are already using a mobile robotic microfactory to rebuild homes lost in the LA wildfires, while SWIFT-BUILD redesigns the entire construction process around robots. If it works, buildings could become easier to adapt, dismantle, and reuse.

QUICK HITS

The U.N. and Red Cross are calling for bans on lethal autonomous weapons, warning that AI-powered “killer robots” are crossing a moral red line.

San Francisco startup Lightberry opened reservations for Lumi, a $39,990 humanoid built on Unitree’s G1 chassis but upgraded with Nvidia Jetson Thor compute.

Battery startup Nyobolt hit a ~$1B valuation after finding a home for its ultra-fast-charging tech in Symbotic’s warehouse robots, including hundreds deployed at Walmart.

China’s second World Humanoid Robot Games showcased huge gains in speed, jumping, and dexterity, underscoring the country’s lead in the humanoid sector.

Atlanta rideshare drivers are pushing lawmakers to curb Waymo’s robotaxi expansion, proposing an impact fee and new limits to counteract fewer rides.

Avride shared a two-hour autonomous drive through Austin, showing its robotaxis handling real-world streets as it pushes toward driverless Uber rides by mid-2027.

Tesla expanded its unsupervised Dallas robotaxi zone by 160%, while hiring operations staff in more cities and testing Cybercabs ahead of a Sept. 3 Austin event.

OpenAI VP Peter Welinder says affordable Level 5 self-driving capable of handling any road or weather without maps or human intervention is still 5–10 years away.

BlackBerry is betting its post-smartphone future on QNX, the safety-critical software embedded in 275M vehicles and now expanding into robotics.

Indian drone startup Airbound raised $37M to scale rocket-like delivery drones designed to eventually move small goods through the air as cheaply as trucks.

Waymo and Zoox test drivers reportedly suffered more than two dozen injuries in 2024 and 2025 as autonomous vehicles abruptly braked or swerved during testing.

That's it for today!

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Rowan, Zach, Shubham, Jennifer, and Nate — The Rundown’s editorial team