Vibe Chicken
A tiny biped you train with reinforcement learning
Overview
Vibe Chicken is an open-source, 25 cm bipedal robot built for one thing: learning. Fifteen degrees of freedom across articulated legs, neck, head and a grasping beak give it real physical agency — walking, kicking, grabbing, and standing up. The full stack — SDK, simulation, and RL training pipeline — is open source, with a tested sim-to-real workflow. Train new behaviors in simulation, deploy them on the robot, watch it strut.
Form
25 cm biped — 15 DOF, 800 g
Compute
Rockchip RK3566 + AI accelerator
Perception
Camera, LiDAR, 8×8 ToF, 2 IMUs
Control
15 Dynamixel servos, 50 Hz policy loop
Core Features
Real Bipedal Motion
15 joints across legs, neck, head and beak. Walks, kicks a ball, grabs objects, and stands up from the ground — real physical agency on the desk.
Reinforcement Learning
Train behaviors with RL in simulation and deploy via a tested sim-to-real workflow. Eight trained moves ship in the box — the rest are yours to teach.
Full Perception Stack
Camera + compact LiDAR + 8×8 time-of-flight depth matrix + two IMUs (body and head). It sees, senses depth, and knows its own posture.
Open Source, All the Way
SDK, simulation environments, RL training scripts, and tools are fully open source. What the robot runs is what you can read, fork, and retrain.
Playable Out of the Box
Pair via Bluetooth or plug in a gamepad. Phone app controls over BLE, live camera feed over WebRTC — no training required to have fun.
50 Hz Policy Loop
A dedicated control daemon drives all 15 servos and the IMU on a single synchronized bus at 50 Hz — safety limits, fall detection and joint clamps built in.
Hardware Specifications
Compute
- Rockchip RK3566 + AI accelerator
- 1 GB RAM, 32 GB storage
Actuation
- 15 DOF: 5 per leg + 5 (neck / head / mouth)
- Dynamixel servos on 1 Mbps shared bus
Perception
- Camera (streams over WebRTC)
- Compact LiDAR + 8×8 ToF depth matrix
- 2 IMUs — body + head (<1 ms quaternion)
Connectivity
- Wi-Fi (config via phone app)
- Bluetooth LE for phone control
- Gamepad support (USB / BLE)
Sensing & Feedback
- Onboard mic — 40-band log-mel audio features
- Voltage + temperature sensing per servo
- Fall detection and thermal limits in safety layer
Power
- Removable NP-F550 battery, 2600 mAh
- ~1 hour runtime depending on use
Dimensions
- 25 cm tall
- ~800 g
OS & Runtime
- Linux with signed, rollback-safe updates
- Rust daemons — robotd (control), mediad, tofd, btd, configd
Software & Training Stack
Open-Source SDK
Full SDK on GitHub — every daemon, every protocol, every policy config is readable and forkable.
Simulation Environments
Virtual training environments with an accurate MJCF model of the robot.
RL Training Scripts
Pre-built RL training scripts to teach walking, kicking, grabbing and more.
Tested Sim-to-Real
A verified sim-to-real workflow — policies trained in simulation deploy to the robot without surprise.
Signed Updates
OTA updates are signed, and the robot rolls back automatically if it boots unhealthy.
Remote Viewing
Live camera feed streamed to your phone over WebRTC — watch it learn from anywhere.
Use Cases
RL Research
A full bipedal learning platform — train locomotion, object interaction, and fall recovery with real hardware feedback.
Robotics Education
From sim to real in one afternoon. Undergraduate labs, bootcamps, and self-learners get a complete pipeline.
Hobbyist Play
Kick a ball, grab a pen, strut across the desk. Eight behaviors ship ready — no ML background needed.
Performance Art
Choreograph walks, songs, and animations. The mouth opens with the audio — a robotic performer on your desk.
Embedded Learning
Study dual-motor sync, 50 Hz real-time control loops, and Rust daemon architecture on real hardware.
AI Pipeline Dev
A concrete target for policy optimization, from the observation space to the reward function.
Open Source
What's Open
The full software stack — SDK, simulation, RL training scripts and tools — released under an open license before the first robots ship.
What Runs Is What You Read
The code on the robot is the code in the repo. No closed binaries, no black boxes — fork, retrain, and redeploy.
Pre-Order & Developer Program
Pre-Order
$399
Suggested retail $499
Includes:
Vibe Chicken ×1, 15 Dynamixel servos, rechargeable NP-F550 battery ×1, USB-C cable ×1, quick start guide ×1
Developer Edition
$499
Everything in Pre-Order + early SDK access, 3D shell models, schematics, RL training workshop
Estimated shipping: Q4 2026