Robot pet reviews, desk robots & open‑source kits
Wobblebots is a field guide to home robots — robot pets for adults and families, desk companions, and open-source kits. Every review carries verified specs, dated prices, and the subscription math, so you know what a robot really costs before it moves in.
Featured home robot
Microduck
Microduck is a $399 open-source 25 cm biped robot duck by Pollen Robotics and Hugging Face: 15 motors, camera, LiDAR, an articulated grabbing beak, seven retrainable behaviors, and an Apache-2.0 SDK. Preorders opened August 27, 2026; ships before Christmas 2026.
Ships knowing how to roller-skate, which is more than can be said for most household members.
Which robot is right for you? Take the quiz
Latest home robot reviews
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№ 0001 Open Platforms
Microduck
Anas machinalis
PREORDER
The roller-skating open-source duckling.
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№ 0002 Open Platforms
Reachy Mini
Cervicula expressiva
IN STOCK
The dev community's desk companion of record.
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№ 0003 Kits
Robomate
Pugnax tabularis
PREORDER
Robot football, in kit form, for the price of a board game habit.
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№ 0004 Companion Pets
Loona
Canis rotalis
IN STOCK
The most robot per dollar in the companion class.
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№ 0005 Desk Buddies
Loona DeskMate
Collega vigilans
PREORDER
The defining specimen of 2026's 'embodied coworker' subcategory.
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№ 0006 Desk Buddies
EMO
Gremlinus scrinii
IN STOCK
The robot people mean when they say 'desktop pet'.
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№ 0007 Desk Buddies
Eilik
Socius offline
IN STOCK
The best first robot money can buy, and the safest gift in the registry.
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№ 0008 Desk Buddies
Vector 2.0
Veteranus resurrectus
IN STOCK
A cult classic with a subscription asterisk and the best hacker story in the class.
Robot gift guides
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Holiday Help
Robot gifts that survive Christmas morning — the ten-minute test, no Wi-Fi required at grandma's, and the shipping deadlines that decide everything.
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Birthday Bots
The robot birthday gift by age band — build kits for 8–12, programmable robots for teens, companion creatures for adults.
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Family Fun
Robots the whole household actually uses at month three — multiplayer machines, build-together kits, and the sofa-dweller.
New robot launches & preorders
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№ 0001 Open Platforms
Microduck
Anas machinalis
PREORDER
The roller-skating open-source duckling.
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№ 0003 Kits
Robomate
Pugnax tabularis
PREORDER
Robot football, in kit form, for the price of a board game habit.
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№ 0005 Desk Buddies
Loona DeskMate
Collega vigilans
PREORDER
The defining specimen of 2026's 'embodied coworker' subcategory.
Robot SDKs & dev kits: Technician's corner
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Freenove Robot Kits: The Dev Experience, from GitHub Tutorials to ESP32
The budget kit workhorse publishes every line of code and every tutorial page free on GitHub — here's what building on Freenove's stack is actually like.
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OpenCat: The Open-Source Framework Behind Petoi's Bittle & Nybble
The quadruped framework that started as one engineer's cat robot — what OpenCat gives you on day one, from serial gait commands to Python and Scratch.
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The Pollen Robotics Dev Stack: Reachy Mini & Microduck SDKs, Explained
One French robotics team, two cute robots, one open pipeline — what you actually get to program, from Python SDK to MuJoCo sim to the Hugging Face Hub.
Find a robotics club near you
The fastest way from "my kid likes robots" to an actual hobby is other kids and a table: school teams, FIRST and RoboCup Junior ladders, free CoderDojo chapters, library makerspaces — or the five-family club you start yourself (one maker even ships free robots to coding clubs). Our guide covers where clubs hide, how to judge one in a single visit, and how to start one from nothing.
Read: how to find (or start) a club →
Robot competitions & events 2026–27 · the field-trip board
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WRO Open Championship Europe
Zagreb, Croatia
The European round of the WRO ladder — all categories and age groups under one roof, and close enough to drive from most of the continent.
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Maker Faire Rome
Gazometro Ostiense, Rome, Italy
Europe's biggest maker show — robots you can actually poke, and the room where half our open-platform makers first exhibited.
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European Robotics Week
All over Europe
Open-door week at labs, schools, and makerspaces across Europe — the local program fills in on the euRobotics site as the week approaches.
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WRO International Final
San Juan, Puerto Rico
The world final, themed "Robots Meet Culture" — where the season's national winners meet.
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VEX Robotics World Championship
America's Center, St. Louis, USA
The VEX ladder's season finale — host city and venue confirmed; exact 2027 dates weren't posted by the organizer when we checked.
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FIRST Championship
George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston, USA
Where every FIRST season ends — LEGO League through FRC in one building. The on-ramp for your kid starts at a local event this winter.
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RoboCup World Championship
Messe Nürnberg, Germany
The robot world cup comes to Germany. Sunday is finals day AND Family Day at the Max-Morlock-Stadion; the organizers promise affordable day tickets.
Dates checked 2026-08-29 against each organizer — reverify with them before booking anything with wheels or wings.
Robotics club news · the club wire
CLUB WIRE · competitions, seasons & club news · updated weekly
- 2026-08-22 SPECTACLE 666 teams brought 2,000+ humanoids to Beijing. The second World Humanoid Robot Games ran August 22–26 — more than double last year's field. Not a kids' ladder, but unbeatable dinner-table material. SCMP photo essay →
- 2026-08-04 SEASON FIRST LEGO League's new season is BIOGLOW. This year's challenge is biodiversity — how tech can help understand and protect natural habitats. The season kicked off August 4; regional events follow through the winter, and ages 5–16 can join a team right now. FIRST LEGO League →
- 2026-08 EVENT Maker Faire Rome sets its 2026 dates. October 23–25 at the Gazometro Ostiense — Europe's biggest maker show, and the most robot-dense weekend you can walk a stroller through. Make: magazine →
- 2026-08 EVENT European Robotics Week pencils in Nov 19–29. The 2026 window is set; the central-event host is still being chosen. Local open-door events across Europe fill in on the euRobotics site as the week approaches. euRobotics →
- 2026-07-16 COMPETITION RoboCup is coming home to Germany. Nuremberg won the 2027 world championship — public visitor days June 17–20, 2027, with a Family Day in the football stadium on finals Sunday. If you're anywhere in central Europe, this is the one to circle. European RoboCup Association →
- 2026-07 RESULTS RoboCup 2026 wrapped in Incheon. 3,000 competitors from 45 countries, and the humanoid leagues stole the show — South Korea's first time hosting. Next stop: Nuremberg. Times of AI →
- 2026-05 SEASON FIRST Tech Challenge's next game is BIOBUZZ. The teen-tier season starts September 12, 2026, under the FIRST CANOPY biodiversity umbrella — same theme year as the LEGO League kids, by design. FIRST →
- 2025-11 COMPETITION WRO picks San Juan for the 2026 world final. Announced as Singapore's record-breaking 2025 final wrapped — Puerto Rico hosts December 8–10, 2026, themed "Robots Meet Culture". WRO Association →
- 2025-05 COMPETITION VEX Worlds moves to St. Louis. America's Center hosts the world championship in both 2026 and 2027 after years in Dallas — the biggest single stop on the VEX ladder. Explore St. Louis →
- 2026-08-28 STANDING ROBOMATES still ships free robots to coding clubs. The small UK maker seeds coding clubs with free robots through its STEM program — which makes the five-family club in our guide cheaper to start than a birthday party. our ROBOMATES review →
Club life on tape · what a season looks like
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About FIRST LEGO League · FIRST LEGO League (official)
What a season actually looks like from inside a team — the program explained by the people who run it.
Watch on YouTube -
RoboCup Junior 2024 at Bordeaux — the journey, the robots · via YouTube
Teams travelling to a RoboCup Junior world event — the noise, the pits, the repairs at the table. This is what the ladder leads to.
Watch on YouTube -
Getting the nation coding with Code Club and CoderDojo · via YouTube
Inside the free volunteer clubs — what a session looks like before you ever visit one.
Watch on YouTube
Is your robot still supported?
Companion robots die differently — servers go dark and a family member stops moving. The support-status tracker records which robots are actively maintained, which are at risk, and what happened to the ones that didn't make it. It is the page we most wish had existed before Moxie.