Walking is not an animation
Drag the joystick or press W A S D. The gait comes from the official walking policy in real time: strafe, walk backwards, turn in place. Kick, roll, sit and ground-pick are each a separately trained policy.
Unofficial fan project · real physics · real policies · zero upload
Tiny duck.
Big waddle.
Now in your browser.
Microduck is a 25 cm open-source robot duck by Pollen Robotics. This page moves its official MuJoCo physics model and official reinforcement-learning policies into the browser untouched: the walk is not an animation, a neural network computes it 50 times a second. Turn on your camera, command it with your hands, pet it, slap it, bully it, and see how it answers.
First load is about 25 MB (physics engine + 9 policies + gesture model). Everything runs on your device; the camera feed never leaves your computer.
00 / PLAYGROUND
Reach in.
Drag the joystick or use WASD to walk. Tap “Open the camera” and your hands appear in front of the duck.
🥚
Hatch a duck
One tap downloads the physics engine and policies (about 25 MB); after that everything runs locally.
Tip: on phones, landscape works best. In-app browsers (WeChat and friends) may struggle; use the system browser.
01 / HOW TO PLAY
Your hands appear in front of it
With the camera on, both hands show up in the scene as 3D skeletons, and they are solid: push it, block it, slap it over, pinch it and lift it, feed it, grab the ball and throw it. It sees your face too: open your mouth and it quacks, smile and it cheers up, blow a kiss and it blushes.
It has moods
Stroke its head slowly → it blushes, hearts pop, it leans into your hand. Slap it → red face, loud quacks. Keep bullying it → it turns around and charges to kick you. Knock it over → it gets up by itself (a trained skill too) and comes to settle the score.
04 / OFFICIAL VIDEOS
This is the real one.
Watch before you play.
Three clips from the official Pollen Robotics channel. The YouTube player only loads when you tap a cover.
Can't see the videos? Go straight to pollen-robotics.com/microduck.
02 / GESTURES
Command it
like a puppy.
It doesn't copy gestures, it understands your hands and face, then does what it knows. Dashed cards need touch, solid cards work from a distance, dotted cards watch your face.
🖐️Wave, back of hand to camera
Come here. It walks to your hand and faces you.
✋Push, palm to camera
Back off. It retreats, still watching you.
✊Fist
Stay put.
✌️Peace ✌️
Forward roll, then it gets back up by itself.
🤟I love you 🤟
Sit down and rest; again to stand up.
👍Thumbs up
Happy quacks and hearts.
👎Thumbs down
It droops, sad.
☝️Index finger up
Bends down to pick something up.
🫳Stroke its head
The more you pet, the happier; at peak joy it wiggles.
👋Slap it fast
Angry! Red face and roars; slap twice and it fights back.
🤏Pinch it and lift
It flails and screams in mid-air. Drop it and it gets up to get even.
🌾Pinch the air = holding food
It smells it and comes over; bring it to the beak and it eats, delighted.
🏐Pinch the ball and fling
Throws the ball. Hit it and it complains.
👏Clap
Startles it into a little hop.
👇Point at the floor
A marker appears where you point and it walks there.
😮Open your mouth
It copies you with a quack.
😊Smile
Your smile cheers it up, hearts included.
😘Blow a kiss
It blushes.
🙃Tilt / turn your head
With no hands in play, its head mirrors yours.
03 / DUCK DATA
Small body.
Serious hardware.
Numbers from the real Microduck; what runs on this page is its digital twin.
15
motors
whole-body motion, including a beak that grips
25cm
tall
desk-sized
<800g
light
built to fall and get up
50Hz
policy loop
this page runs at the same rate as the robot
01Waddle
Velocity-tracking gait with unmistakable duck energy.
02Grab
The beak dips, scoops and carries.
03Kick
One clean boot, then straight back to walking.
04Recover
From flat on its back to standing, all by itself.