72.4 M steps in 3.57 h
Apple M5 MacBook, 6 cores, 1,536 parallel ducks. The Mac’s GPU cannot run this physics, so everything runs on the CPU.
open-duck-mac
We teach Open Duck Mini v2 to walk from scratch on a MacBook, CPU only. Then we break it and measure why it breaks.
This site is the full version of the experiments behind our short videos. Every script, log and measurement is in the repository, so you don’t have to take our word for anything: run it again on your own Mac.
Results in brief
Section titled “Results in brief”First step at 68.4 M
Stood up in ~11 minutes, sat on a plateau for ~3 hours, then lifted its feet: 29.8 cm in 5 s.
Break the reward, get a hack
“Be fast” → crawling on its belly at 14.9 min. “Don’t waste energy” → frozen at 7.5 min. “Lift your feet” → lying down, feet in the air, at 30 min.
Half the distance with the motor on the box
The simulated motor limit is ~70 % above the catalog rating. At the catalog limit the same policy covers half the distance.
What’s here
Section titled “What’s here”Try it in 5 minutes./duck setup, ./duck try: install with one command, watch the walking duck, weaken its motor.
SetupEvery command from an empty Mac to your first training run.
ConceptsReinforcement learning, PPO, rewards, domain randomization, without the maths.
1. Learning to walk3.6 hours, 72.4 M steps, 1,536 parallel ducks.
2. Reward hackingWe only changed the reward; the duck found crawling, freezing, lying down.
3. The motor on the boxAt the catalog torque it goes half as far. Trained at that torque, the duck walked at 88.8 M and forgot after 170 M.
What can you try?Ideas for your own experiments, with difficulty and time estimates.
MicroduckPollen's $399 duck: hardware, training recipe, how it differs from Open Duck, what you can do on a Mac.
Videos
Section titled “Videos”The videos are in Turkish.
| Episode | Topic | YouTube |
|---|---|---|
| Duck 1 | I didn’t buy the viral duck, I trained its sibling on my Mac | Shorts |
| Duck 2 | I told the duck “be fast”; it learned to crawl on its belly | 28 October 2026 |
| Duck 3+ | The motor on the box (sim2real) | in production (experiment done) |
Channel: youtube.com/@getporti
Credits
Section titled “Credits”The robot, model, environment and rewards are Open Duck Mini’s: Antoine Pirrone and contributors (Open_Duck_Mini, Open_Duck_Playground). Simulation by MuJoCo / MJX, MuJoCo Playground and Brax. If you build on this, credit Open Duck Mini first.