Schlagwortarchiv: ESP32-S3

Petoi Quaddle: A Do-It-All Mini Robot Dog for Physical AI

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Your ticket to an open-source playground of real-world robotics & AI — for fun, learning & experiments — made accessible with OpenCat

Quaddle is the next robot to democratize access to robotics and physical AI — a palm-sized quadruped that:

  • assembles with only 4 screws in under 20 minutes
  • walks, flips, skates, and reacts
  • lets you teach it a new trick in seconds with no code
  • is a companion in learning robotics, coding & physical AI

Starting at $109, it’s the most accessible legged physical AI kit available — nothing else in this category comes close. It’s also a versatile robot that moves like something alive, not something mechanical or just on wheels.

A real answer to physical AI’s accessibility problem, no matter who wins the „GPT moment“ race. The industry is debating which frontier AI model or world model will produce robotics‘ „GPT moment.“ Quaddle doesn’t claim to answer that. What it addresses is a narrower, separate problem: almost nobody can actually touch a real robot outside a toy aisle.

  • Quaddle closes that gap directly: an affordable, playful robot you can actually own, not just watch
  • Once it’s on your desk, Petoi’s own APIs let anyone vibe-code new robot behaviors — no embedded-systems background, no touching firmware internals required
  • AI-assisted „vibe coding“ can even reach into the open firmware itself for those who want to go deeper — it took as little as 15 minutes for Quaddle’s own mood-expression feature

There’s already something on a desk people can pick up and try for themselves today.

Goal: $50,000 — achieved in the first two days. Delivery: targeting early December 2026 — in time for Christmas. Current funding progress: see the live Kickstarter page.

Who Quaddle is for

Primarily an educational robotics & physical AI platform, built around students, makers, educators, and researchers who want to build on it and customize it, not just watch it.

AudienceWhy Quaddle fits
Students (8+) & young buildersBlock-to-Python-to-C++ coding path grows with them; Learn & Replay gives an instant, no-code first win
Makers & hobbyistsOpen OpenCat platform, LEGO-compatible mounting, feedback servos you can read and reprogram — not a sealed toy
K-12 & university educatorsClassroom-ready without depending on Wi-Fi; a two-level path from AI-assisted prompts to hands-on robotics
Researchers & developersURDF (the robot’s 3D description file, used to load it into a simulator) is published and portable to standard simulators (Gazebo, PyBullet, Isaac Sim) for sim-to-real and reinforcement-learning work
Gift buyersPrice and Deskpet/companion appeal make it approachable even without a robotics background

Quaddle is already in production and shipping on the stated timeline — no months-long wait.

Petoi also invites the community to help design the robot itself: anyone can create a custom color scheme at qd.petoi.com and submit it for community voting. Designs with strong support that pass production review may become an official Quaddle colorway, with the designer credited. More on the campaign.

Key features

FeatureDetail
90+ Lifelike movementsActive balancing, self-righting, forward flips, backflip, skating (slides ~½m), crab walk, three-leg gait
Learn & Replay Your Trick (Buddy/Scout)See „Moments that define Quaddle“ above
Voice + AI (Buddy/Scout)Natural language → motion; cloud LLM, typical <1s latency; locomotion stays local
Deskpet mode (Buddy/Scout)On-desk AI companion: chats, reacts with movements and mood, keeps you company
Offline capableMobile app, gamepad controller, back touch buttons trigger all signature moves without Wi-Fi
Build time~15 minutes, snap-fit, swappable battery, Type-C charging
Open platformFull Petoi toolchain (OpenCat, Petoi’s open-source robotics framework), ROS (Robot Operating System, the standard robotics software framework) via Raspberry Pi; compatible with Arduino modules and sensors
CustomizableMood expression, 3D-printable shells, mounts, and accessories (official STL files — load-bearing joints stay injection-molded for durability); LEGO-compatible mounting points for sensors and add-ons
Privacy switchHardware slide switch fully cuts power to AI module — classroom-safe

About Petoi

Founder Dr. Rongzhong Li built a robot cat as a personal project in 2016 while a physics lecturer at Wake Forest University, publishing the designs as OpenCat; he founded Petoi LLC in 2017 to commercialize it. Nybble (2018, Indiegogo) and Bittle (2020, Kickstarter — 11x its funding goal) followed. Quaddle is the next generation: more interaction surfaces, richer AI, and roughly half the price of prior flagship tiers.

CircuitMess Launches MAKERphone 2.0 on Kickstarter — a Real 4G Phone You Build Yourself and Code with AI

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Eight years after 2,154 backers soldered together the original DIY phone, CircuitMess returns with a sequel anyone can assemble in about two hours — and program in plain English, Python, or C++.

Middletown, Delaware, USA — September 10th, 2026 — CircuitMess today launched its Kickstarter campaign for MAKERphone 2.0, a fully functional 4G mobile phone that arrives in pieces. Builders assemble it themselves in about two hours — no soldering and no experience required — insert a nano-SIM, and it makes real calls and sends real texts on live cellular networks. Then comes the part no other phone offers: its owner programs it, starting by describing ideas in plain English in VibeBoy, CircuitMess’s AI-assisted coding studio, and progressing to real Python and C++.

From Seven Hours of Soldering to a Two-Hour Build

The original MAKERphone, launched on Kickstarter in 2018, asked backers to spend roughly seven hours with a soldering iron — and 2,154 of them did. Eight years and feedback from more than 6,000 MAKERphone users later, MAKERphone 2.0 keeps the build-it-yourself soul and removes the barriers: every component clicks, screws, or plugs into place, guided by a LEGO-style illustrated manual and video guides. Along the way, builders learn what a phone actually is from the inside out — the processor, the modem, the display, the battery.

A Phone With No Locked Doors

Assembled, MAKERphone 2.0 is a complete classic phone: calls, texting, contacts, ringtones, alarms, a music player, and more than 10 built-in retro games on a 1.77-inch color display — 104 grams of open, hackable hardware built around the Arduino-compatible ESP32-S3. Its UMAX expansion port takes six snap-on modules — Camera, Big Speaker, Flashlight, Environment, Infrared, and a DIY Perf Board for custom circuits — each auto-detected the moment it is plugged in. An optional companion, the buildable MAKERband smartwatch, pairs with the MAKERphone as well as iOS and Android, with 15 watchfaces, five mini-games, and phone notifications.

For parents, it is a first phone that calls and texts the people a child needs — with no social media, no app store, and no infinite feed. When a kid wants a new app, they build it.

Coding That Starts in Plain English

MAKERphone 2.0 is programmed through VibeBoy, CircuitMess’s AI-assisted coding studio: describe an idea in plain English — „make me a game where a taco dodges falling pickles“ — watch AI write the code, and send it to the phone in one click. Then open that code, learn to read it, fix it, and make it your own: a four-level learning ladder takes builders from Pixel Rookie (ages 9+) to Vibe Coder, writing their own Python and C++ from a blank file. VibeBoy is not autocomplete — it teaches users how to think with AI: how to describe problems, read generated code, and correct it when it is wrong. Every MAKERphone 2.0 comes with three months of unlimited AI usage and a free VibeBoy tier for life.

The philosophy behind the product: MAKERphone 2.0 doesn’t fight screen time — it turns it into create time.

„The original MAKERphone taught thousands of kids that a phone isn’t magic — it’s parts and code, and both can be mastered,“ says Albert Gajšak, founder and CEO of CircuitMess. „MAKERphone 2.0 takes away everything that used to stand in the way. You build it in an afternoon, and with VibeBoy you can make it do things no phone in any store can do — even if you have never written a line of code.“

Ready for Manufacturing, Not a Prototype

MAKERphone 2.0’s hardware design is complete and final production hardware exists; the software is feature-complete and in final testing. The Kickstarter campaign funds manufacturing at scale, not R&D, and deliveries to backers are expected in Q3 2027. The campaign offers backers exclusive early-bird pricing and limited launch rewards.

To back the project, visit the MAKERphone 2.0 Kickstarter page, or explore CircuitMess’s other kits at circuitmess.com.

About CircuitMess

CircuitMess is a team of engineers and designers based in Karlovac, Croatia, founded in 2017 by Albert Gajšak after a successful Kickstarter campaign for MAKERbuino. Its mission is turning kids — and kids at heart — from tech consumers into tech creators. CircuitMess has shipped more than 300,000 kits to customers in over 100 countries, developed 37 products, and raised over $2.2M across 6 Kickstarter campaigns, every single one delivered. Its kits have been featured in Forbes, TechCrunch, Wired, BBC, The Verge, The New York Times, Popular Science, Tom’s Hardware, and GameSpot. Find out more at www.circuitmess.com.