Say hello to Bittle – he isn’t as dangerous-looking as his elder brother, the Boston Dynamics robot dog Spot. In fact, Bittle’s name rhymes with ‘little’ for a reason. Weighing just 10.2 ounces (290 grams) and measuring a mere 7.9 inches from nose to tail, Bittle is quite literally palm-sized… although don’t let its diminutive size fool you. Armed with 10 servo motors that power its limbs and neck, Bittle is just about as capable as the Boston Dynamics robot dog. In fact, it can even follow commands, learn tricks, and perform them at will! Sounds like Bittle’s a pretty expensive little pet, right? Well, designed to be more of a robot building system and STEM education tool for people to learn and play with, Bittle just costs around $299.

Designer: Rongzhong Li

Click Here to Buy Now: $278 $299 (7% off with coupon code “yanko7”). Hurry, sale ends May 20.

Designed on an open-source platform, Bittle is a nifty patent-pending robot that makes learning how to code an absolute ‘treat’! The robot building kit comes with a plastic body that you can buy flat-packed and assemble yourself, or pay 10 bucks extra to get shipped pre-assembled and ready to use out of the box. Each Bittle comes with 10 servo motors, plastic body parts, a proprietary circuit board compatible with Arduino Uno, Bluetooth and WiFi dongles, a 7.4V rechargeable battery, and an infrared remote to control your dog and have it perform tricks. For the most part, Bittle sports a modular design and you can add/subtract elements to create the dog you dream of (if you’re looking for something akin to the Boston Dynamics bot, the head pops right off).

They say an old dog doesn’t learn new tricks, but that isn’t really the case with Bittle. Your programmable bionic buddy understands many languages, C++ through Arduino IDE, Python, Codecraft (a Scratch-like drop and drop coding environment), and a bunch of human languages(requiring the use of a Raspberry Pi for voice command recognition). It can also be programmed to walk, jog, jump, and climb up obstacles with ease. You can attach an infrared sensor that’ll help Bittle with obstacle detection, and the incredibly nimble and flexible limbs help Bittle even get up if it collapses over. Moreover, its open-source design based on Petoi’s quadruped robotic pet framework OpenCat, means that all of Bittle’s code sits in a GitHub repository for you to immediately begin tinkering with, and an ever-expanding community is always providing new tips and tricks that you can use to make Bittle do your bidding… just promise us you won’t turn it sentient.

Build a robot dog on your own!

Self-righting after falling from a slope (triggered by an infrared remote)

If you want a little more out of Bittle than just shaking paws and sitting on command, its modular design really gives you the freedom to explore this tiny canine’s true capabilities. Bittle’s mouth can be clipped with something like a tiny camera module that allows the dog to capture a video feed and see things and react programmatically. Even though the dog weighs just a few ounces, it can carry nearly double its weight, making it perfect to do odd tasks like carrying Oreos for you (sometimes you really want an Oreo) or other tiny objects. Bittle’s battery pack provides one hour of continuous usage, unlocking a bunch of fun possibilities, and adventure-loving tinkerers can also swap out Bittle’s head with other 3D-print structures or paint Bittle’s body, tweaking its appearance to make Bittle look like some other animals.

Petoi Nybble

Petoi, the creators of Bittle (and its cat counterpart Nybble), designed the robot quadruped to be everything from a cute toy to a powerful learning platform that gives you insight into how robots work and how they understand cues and commands. Bittle ships with an infrared remote that lets you control it, and also has companion mobile/desktop apps that forms a perfect foundation for experimenting with robotics… without breaking the bank!

Click Here to Buy Now: $278 $299 (7% off with coupon code “yanko7”). Hurry, sale ends May 20.