Hugging Face robot duck walks in simulated snow with 290,000 physics-simulated flakes
lukas_m_ziegler · x · 2026-10-28
Hugging Face's MicroDuck robot duck walks through a snowy scene simulated in NVIDIA Newton with a custom snow solver — and the physics is surprisingly rigorous: flake sizes, masses and fall speeds come from snowfall measurement literature dating back to the 1970s, flakes tumble like thin plates, and the 8 mm/h liquid-equivalent snowfall keeps 290,000 flakes airborne at once.
Snow sticks according to the angle of repose at air temperature, rides along each link's own frame as the robot moves, and the feet press footprints into a 2 mm-resolution snowpack. The walking policy was trained in Isaac Lab and reimplemented in pure Newton without the Isaac Lab runtime.
Related event: Hugging Face's MicroDuck Robot Duck Walks in 290,000-Flake Snow Simulation(2 posts)→
More from Embodied
- AI-assisted porting craze gets wild: Xiaomi 15 boots iOS 16 — op7418 · 2026-10-28
- Boston Dynamics reportedly asks Korean suppliers to gear up for 10,000 Atlas robots — xmercury_one · 2026-10-28
- Robotics startup binary.so hires founding engineers in Bengaluru at ₹25–65 LPA — k7agar · 2026-10-28
- F1 Champion Damon Hill Takes First Ride in Tesla Cybercab in Austin — elonmusk · 2026-10-28
- iPhone Duo Day-One Hands-On: Underwhelming, Far From iPhone Air's Wow Factor — huangyun_122 · 2026-10-28
- Tesla Robotaxi expands Houston service area to Downtown, NRG Park and Medical Center — elonmusk · 2026-10-28