Vottivott/microduck-playground

Reproducible reinforcement-learning experiments, policy demonstrations, and printable hardware add-ons for Pollen Robotics' Microduck.

This is an independent experimental continuation of pollen-robotics/microduck_rl, not an official Pollen Robotics release. For the initial public release, all playground-specific work is consolidated into one commit on top of upstream commit d424a0c, preserving the original project history and attribution. Development after the release uses ordinary commits. The upstream project can be added as a Git remote when preparing focused contributions.

Animated previews play directly in the table. Click one—or use its explicit full-video link—to open the complete silent MP4.

Experiment	Preview	Result and artifacts
Self-pumped swing		Starts still and reaches a 173.20° strict full span. Full video · Experiment · Runtime adapter · ONNX on Hugging Face
Blind basketball balance		LSTM policy with no ball-state input: 97.01% survival over 60 seconds in 3,072 simulation trials. Experimental hardware-test candidate; hardware untested. Full video · Experiment and training · ONNX and checkpoint · LSTM runtime PR
Fast running		Robustified iteration-12,195 simulation candidate: 1.651 m/s nominal, and 1.612 m/s under backlash plus disturbance stress. Full video · Experiment · ONNX on Hugging Face
Stilt walking		Blend-0.50 policies for 10, 15, 20, 25, and 50 cm, plus 1.0, 1.4, and 2.0 m simulation stilts (10 cm shown). Full video · Experiment · Hardware · Policies and videos
Climbing		Climb, land, recover. Experiment and training · Ladder and mounts · Models
Chimney climbing		Braced climbing through a 12.5 cm gap to a 3 m platform. Selected simulation rollout; hardware untested. Full video · Experiment and training · Climb, enter and exit policies
Raised-platform long jump		Simulation only; not yet validated on hardware. Details and reproduction · Policy and training checkpoint
Raised-platform backflip		Experimental simulation policy; hardware unvalidated. ⚠️ Landings may break the robot. Details and reproduction · Policy and training checkpoint

Previews illustrate simulation behaviors. The jump/backflip excerpts are selected research footage; see their documented fresh-checkpoint verification and original footage provenance limits. Compact machine-readable evaluation records live beside each experiment.

The retained swing seat keeps the battery centered without occupying the head-and-leg pumping corridors. It includes compliant locating pads, a padded strap, and a removable buckle. The source generators, printable millimetre meshes, MuJoCo collision hulls, and clearance reports are under hardware/swing-seat.

Front

Three-quarter

Side

The stilt system replaces the removable soles and preserves explicit tip contact geometry. The gallery uses the demonstrated green 10 cm blend-0.50 configuration. Parametric generators and printable meshes are under hardware/stilts.

Front

Three-quarter

Side

3D-printed prototype

The modular climbing ladder has pin-free stacking joints, a central spine, a matching floor base and printed tightening screws for the table mounts. Printable models, generators, assembly instructions and the full gallery are under hardware/ladder.

Stacking joints

Floor base

Table mounts

A CUDA GPU and uv are recommended. Training uses MuJoCo Warp through mjlab.

git clone https://github.com/Vottivott/microduck-playground
cd microduck-playground
uv sync

# Cheap configuration/training smoke test first.
uv run train Mjlab-SwingPump-MicroDuck \
  --env.scene.num-envs 64 \
  --agent.max-iterations 5

# Full swing training configuration.
uv run train Mjlab-SwingPump-MicroDuck \
  --env.scene.num-envs 4096

experiments/
  parkour/               raised-platform long jump and backflip
  basketball/            blind LSTM policy, evaluation, continuation guide
  running/               clean policy preview and result summary
  stilts/                policy index, executed curriculum, continuation guide
  swing/                 selected checkpoints, evaluation, media, methodology
hardware/
  stilts/                parametric stilt generator and printable meshes
  swing-seat/            retained-seat generator, meshes, clearance reports
src/mjlab_microduck/     tasks, robot models, actuator model, rewards
scripts/                 evaluation, export, rendering, and selection tools
integrations/            policy-specific deployment adapters
tests/                   CPU configuration and invariant tests
docs/                    supporting research and training notes

These are simulation experiments, not hardware safety certifications. The swing model simulates two elastic tension-only cords and randomized actuator and sensor dynamics, but real cord knots, frame flex, textile contact, servo temperature, and assembly tolerances remain. Extreme-height stilts require an engineered load path and fall protection. Use a safety tether, current limits, an emergency stop, a clear exclusion zone, and conservative incremental tests.

To compare against or prepare a focused pull request for Pollen's project:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/pollen-robotics/microduck_rl.git
git fetch upstream

Software is licensed under Apache-2.0; see LICENSE. As in the upstream project, 3D hardware design files are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International; see LICENSE-HARDWARE. Third-party Microduck assets retain their original attribution and terms. See NOTICE and the hardware-specific READMEs.