Palm‑sized. Omnidirectional. AI‑powered. Yours to build.

Four vibrating legs, a camera eye, a brain you can hack. Open firmware, modular by design — small enough for your desk, or every desk in a classroom.

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Built in the open — follow on Instagram · code on GitHub · try the simulator now.

What it does

A real robot. Real AI. In your hand.

Three things make the BugBot different — and you can see all three.

Built for

Enthusiasts and classrooms

One robot, two audiences, and a real reason for each.

For enthusiasts

A real AI robot, on your desk

Not a sealed plastic toy. Not a Lego set. A genuine robot you wire, code and modify — with AI vision on a board you can hold.

  • Open firmware, fully documented hardware — program it, mod it, extend it
  • Modular connectors for sensors, cameras and add-ons
  • Real engineering — wire it, solder it, code it, and make it yours
  • Cheap enough to break, real enough to build something serious
  • Camera vision on the robot, heavier AI on your laptop over Wi-Fi, and a simulator to try ideas first
For classrooms

One robot per student, not one per team

Bulky kits force teams of four to six around a single robot. With BugBot's palm size and price, every student gets hands-on time — not 20 minutes of waiting between five-minute turns.

  • Fits on the desks you already have — no robotics lab required
  • Maps cleanly to KS4 and beyond — computing & D&T, electronics, programming, AI/computer vision
  • Safe by design — low-power vibration, no spinning wheels
  • A classroom set at a fraction of LEGO / VEX pricing
  • Lesson plans and teaching materials included with classroom kits
  • Real, hands-on engineering — the skills transfer

Try it now, free

Drive a BugBot before you own one

This is the BugBot simulator, the same one built into every lesson. Students write Python, press Run, and watch the robot work it out on the mat before it goes anywhere near the real thing. A program that drives into a wall here costs nothing, and a program that works here runs on the real BugBot unchanged. The one below drives round a wall to the green square: change a number and run it again. No account, nothing to install.

Start the lessons Open the simulator

Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom. Exported from the real design files.

First boards in production

The BugBot boards

Three 40 mm boards designed from scratch, stacked into a palm-sized brain. Vision carries an ESP32-P4 with Wi-Fi, the camera, the switch and the buttons. Motion carries the battery, USB-C charging, four motor drivers and two servo outputs. Odometry watches the mat with an optical-flow sensor and a 9-axis IMU.

Open code. Open schematics. Hackable platform. Every circuit is published, every pin is documented, and the firmware is yours to read, fork and change.

  • Open source firmwareC underneath, Python on top. You program the robot in Python, on the robot itself. Full repos on GitHub.
  • Schematics publishedEvery sheet as KiCad and PDF, the full bill of materials, 3D models, and a circuit simulation of the whole stack you can run yourself.
  • Modular by designPlug-in connectors for motors, servos, the camera, the ToF depth sensor and the odometry board.

Out now

The open-source BugBot is live

The software, the simulator and the hardware design are public today, ahead of the boards. Write a program in your browser, run it on a simulated BugBot, and look inside the real one.

Try the simulator

A 3D BugBot on its mat, driven by your Python. Test a program here before it runs on the robot. Nothing to install.

Open the simulator
Read the docs

Getting started, the hardware, the boards in 3D and the full API reference. Student lessons with the simulator in every step are at bugbot-lessons, and class competitions for the projector at bugbot-competitions.

Go to the docs
Get the code

Firmware, the laptop library, the IDE and simulator, the schematics and the circuit bench. MIT licensed.

BugBotLab on GitHub

Specifications

What's inside

The hardware on the three BugBot boards, in one place.

ProcessorESP32-P4 (dual-core RISC-V, 400 MHz, 32 MB PSRAM) with an ESP32-C6 for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth
On-device visionAprilTag, colour blob, edge and face detection on the robot; heavier AI on your laptop over Wi-Fi
Drive4 × vibration motors on DRV8830 drivers: omnidirectional motion in a palm-sized chassis
Outputs2 × servo outputs · RGB LED
VisionOV5647 camera on a 22-pin flex + 8×8 Time-of-Flight depth sensor (64-zone ranging)
Motion sensingPMW3360 optical-flow sensor reading the mat · Bosch BNO055 9-axis IMU
ConnectivityWi-Fi · Bluetooth · USB-C · USB dongle for the laptop
Power1S LiPo, USB-C charging with power-path, 3.2 V low-battery cut-off in firmware
Boards3 × 40 × 40 mm, 4-layer, stacked on 2 × 5 sockets
ProgrammingPython on the robot · browser IDE with a 3D simulator · Python library on the laptop · C firmware (ESP-IDF)
LicenceMIT: firmware, software, simulator, schematics and BOM on GitHub · PCB layout files stay private

FAQ

Common questions

The first production run of the three boards is being made now, and the software is already public (see Open Source). The boards launch first, with complete kits to follow later. The exact launch date will be announced to waitlist subscribers first.

At launch, the three BugBot boards are sold as a set — the brain of the system. Everything else (3D-printable chassis, motor list, sensor BOM, full build guide) is free and open on GitHub. You source the additional parts and print the chassis yourself. Complete plug-and-go kits will follow later — for now it's the maker route.

Pricing is being finalised. The BugBot Board is designed to be affordable enough that an individual maker can pick one up easily — and that classrooms can buy them in volume — at a fraction of the cost of competing robotics platforms. Waitlist subscribers get the launch announcement first.

Correct — no wheels. Each of the four feet sits on a vibration motor with an offset weight inside. When the motor spins, that weight throws the leg in tiny rapid kicks. Drive the four motors at different speeds and the BugBot scurries forward, turns, or strafes in any direction. Same physics as the haptic buzz in your phone, scaled up to walk.

Anywhere reasonably flat — wood, plastic, hard floors, desks, paper. The feet are designed to grip without marking, so it shouldn't scuff a desk. Very glossy surfaces can get slippery (it loses traction); deep carpet won't catch. If in doubt, stick it on a piece of card — that always works.

Close — it's an 8×8 Time-of-Flight sensor, same family as lidar but much smaller. It pulses infrared light and times the bounce-back across 64 zones, giving the BugBot a low-resolution depth map of what's in front of it. Combined with the camera, that's genuine spatial awareness — measure distance, spot objects, dodge obstacles.

Some basic soldering will be needed at the board-first launch, since you'll be assembling parts you source yourself. Future complete kits will be plug-and-screw. You'll also need access to a 3D printer (or a print service) for the chassis. For code, you write Python in the browser IDE and press run: nothing to install, and you can practise in the 3D simulator before you have a robot. The C firmware and the laptop library are there when you want to go deeper.

Yes, and it is out now. The firmware, the laptop library, the browser IDE and simulator, the schematics and the bill of materials are all public on GitHub under the MIT licence, with the docs and lessons at bugbotlab.com/bugbot-docs. Every circuit and every pin is documented, so you can extend the robot with any sensor, motor or module you can think of. The one thing kept private is the PCB layout: that is how the BugBot stays affordable instead of racing knock-offs to the bottom.

Yes — you can order multiple board sets at launch, and the open files mean you can print and assemble chassis pieces in bulk. Full classroom kits will follow when production scales — pre-printed, pre-assembled, and with lesson plans and teaching materials included — designed so a teacher can have a robot for every student. Drop a note to info@bugbotlab.com with your group size and timeline.

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Join the waitlist for launch news, first access at launch, and behind-the-scenes build updates.

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See progress and robot demos on Instagram.