Petoi has been shrinking Boston Dynamics down to desk size for almost a decade now. Dr. Rongzhong Li started the company in his dorm lab in 2016, after a video of his open-source robot cat prototype went viral. That cat became Nybble, a laser-cut wooden kitty, and it was followed by Bittle, a palm-sized robot dog that ended up in classrooms, research labs, and a surprising number of home offices. Petoi says it has shipped more than 30,000 robots to over 60 countries, all running its open-source OpenCat framework. Each new model has gotten smaller, smarter, and easier to build, which brings us to the newest pup in the litter.

Meet Quaddle, a palm-sized robot dog that walks, glides, spins, and does backflips using just four servos. That’s half what Bittle uses in its legs and roughly a third of what most quadrupeds need, thanks to a spring-loaded linkage Petoi calls the MinDoF leg, which lets one motor drive both the shoulder and the knee. It weighs about 6 ounces, snaps together without screws, and takes LEGO bricks on its back. You can teach it tricks by physically moving its legs, chat with it, or code it in anything from beginner blocks to ROS. Prices start at $179, which is pretty reasonable for a dog that never needs walking.

Designer: Petoi

How one servo runs an entire leg

Each of Quaddle’s legs hangs off a single servo, with a spring and a four-bar linkage doing the job a second motor normally would. As the servo swings the upper leg, the linkage folds the knee up and straightens it again, turning one rotating shaft into a proper step. Petoi calls this the MinDoF leg, short for Minimal Degrees of Freedom, a degree of freedom being one independent way a joint can move. The spring clips onto different anchor points, changing how stiff or bouncy each leg feels. In Petoi’s tabletop tests, Quaddle walks about one body length per second, turns 90° in a single step cycle, and climbs onto a ledge as tall as its own knee.

Walking machines driven by a single crank go back to Pafnuty Chebyshev, the Russian mathematician whose 1870s linkage turned rotation into a surprisingly lifelike stride. Theo Jansen’s wind-powered Strandbeests on Dutch beaches run on the same basic idea, and Quaddle feels like their tiny, battery-powered cousin. Petoi added one more trick by fitting small bearings to the tips of the feet. Angle the legs just right and those bearings become wheels, letting Quaddle glide across a smooth desk at around three body lengths per second without a single extra motor. Fewer motors also means less weight, less cost, and less battery drain, which is how the whole dog comes in at roughly 6 ounces.

Teach it tricks by hand, then teach it in code

On the Buddy and Scout models, every leg servo reports its position back to the robot, so you can teach Quaddle a move by simply grabbing its legs. Tap to start recording, guide the legs through whatever silly dance you have in mind, and tap again to have it play the motion back. There’s no app or code involved, and Petoi says you can teach it a basic walk in about ten seconds. Recorded moves can be pulled into Petoi’s Skill Composer software for fine-tuning and shared with other Quaddle owners. For a kid, this is probably the fastest route from “I wonder if” to a robot actually doing the thing.

Buddy and Scout split their thinking across two ESP32-S3 chips, one for motion and balance and one for voice chat and smart home control. A physical slide switch cuts power to the AI chip entirely, which is great for privacy and for days when your robot dog gets a bit too chatty. Coding starts with drag-and-drop blocks, moves to Python or MicroPython, and eventually reaches the Arduino C++ firmware. Bigger projects can mount a Raspberry Pi Zero on its back or plug into ROS, the software framework most research robots run on. A browser-based simulator runs the same code as the real robot, so you can test ideas on a laptop or even a phone with no robot in sight.

LEGO bricks, a Nokia battery, and three Quaddles to pick from

The top of Quaddle’s shell takes LEGO bricks, and Petoi will publish printable shells and mounts for anyone with a 3D printer. Petoi’s own demos have turned it into a walking LEGO AT-AT, a waddling biped called the NanoDuck, and a rover on Mecanum wheels, which use angled rollers to slide sideways. Power comes from a swappable Nokia-format phone battery, the same BL-5C shape that lived inside Nokia’s famously indestructible early-2000s handsets. Quaddle ships with the bigger 1,800 mAh BL-10C cell, good for roughly 1 to 1.5 hours of walking depending on the model. Plug it into USB-C while you code and it charges as it runs, so marathon debugging sessions are fair game.

Builder PLUS ($179) handles walking and coding, Buddy ($219) adds AI chat and teach-by-hand, and Scout ($269) adds a sensor head that detects gestures, light, distance, and people. All three are priced at $144, $175, and $215, with deliveries starting in December. For context, Petoi’s own Bittle X lists at $279, Unitree’s Go2 starts around $1,600, and Sony’s Aibo launched in the US at $2,900. Petoi spent a decade shrinking big robots down to desk size, and Quaddle shows the smartest way to shrink one further is to give it fewer parts.

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Nvidia and Agile Robots unveiled Agile ONE SN, a compact humanoid with Jetson Thor computing and Isaac GR00T training tools. Here's what it can do, its specifications, and when it launches.

The post Agile ONE SN Humanoid Robot Bundles Nvidia’s Robotics Stack appeared first on TechRepublic.

China's Unitree unveils the H2-X humanoid robot with kung fu moves and rescue demonstrations, but questions remain about its autonomy, safety and endurance.

The post China’s Unitree Shows Off H2-X Robot With Kung Fu Moves and Rescue Skills appeared first on TechRepublic.

German police seized a humanoid robot after it allegedly groped a teenage girl in Cologne, raising questions about human control and criminal responsibility.

The post German Police Seize Robot After Alleged Groping of 16-Year-Old Girl appeared first on TechRepublic.

A public pavilion can give people somewhere to gather, but returning to it usually means finding the same spaces and following the same paths. Self-Assembling Robotic Environments explores a more flexible alternative: mobile architectural sections that could rearrange themselves between visits. This unbuilt public art concept would pause whenever someone enters, letting people explore one arrangement before the space changes for another group.

Each section combines a floor, wall, and roof in a large C-shaped profile, like a little shelter with its sides left open. Two versions stand about 10 and 14 feet tall, both four feet wide. Place several together, and those simple shapes could become passages or covered pockets. Separate them again and the same pieces would offer a different place to wander.

Designer: Michael Jantzen

Of course, rearranging those sections wouldn’t mean asking someone to wheel them into position. Each floor would contain its own computer, sensors, motors, wheels, and battery, allowing the entire unit to travel forward, backward, or sideways. The wall and roof would move with it. The robotics aren’t proposed as equipment that builds the installation and then leaves; they’d remain part of the architecture.

Rather than following one permanent floor plan, the modules would use artificial intelligence to decide on their positions through majority agreement. The proposal doesn’t explain how they would evaluate possible arrangements, though. A gap between two units could become a passage, while several facing one another might define a gathering spot. The same pieces could give visitors different ways to use the space.

The roof would do more than shelter whoever stands beneath it. Solar cells on top would recharge the battery inside the floor, keeping the proposed power supply within each moving section. It’s a sensible place to collect sunlight, but the project doesn’t specify how much energy movement would require. Keeping these large pieces in motion isn’t as simple as putting solar panels overhead.

A black perimeter would mark the robots’ territory, containing their movements within a circular arena. Sensors would watch for people or objects entering that space, pausing every module until the area is clear. You wouldn’t be expected to dodge a moving wall while exploring. The intended sequence is straightforward: the pieces rearrange when empty, then hold their positions while visitors are inside.

That rule still needs engineering before anyone could walk in. Detecting a visitor isn’t the same as stopping safely, and the project doesn’t establish braking distances or structural performance. Raised floor sections also need an accessible way in. These are questions for a working installation, rather than reasons to dismiss the idea, but the concept drawings don’t settle them on their own.

For visitors, the pause could make staying put part of the interaction. Sit inside a sheltered corner for a while, and that particular arrangement would remain available until everyone leaves. A later group might find a different route or gathering spot. Someone lingering to finish a conversation would therefore be doing something rather unusual: keeping a version of the architecture from disappearing yet.

The post This Robotic Pavilion Concept Would Change Its Layout Only When Empty first appeared on Yanko Design.