5 DIY quadrupeds worth copying in 2026

Everyone wants a mini Spot. Good news: there are five open quadruped projects mature enough to clone in 2026, and they cover every budget from $150 to $3,000.

1. Mini Pupper 2 ($400–600)

MangDang's commercial-hobby hybrid. Comes as a kit or printed-STL plans. Raspberry Pi 4 brain, 12 small BLDC servos, reasonable ROS 2 support, good community. Best for: first quadruped if you don't want to source parts yourself.

2. SpotMicro / StanfordPupper ($200–400)

The OG hobbyist Spot clone. Hobby servos, 3D-printed frame, Arduino or Raspberry Pi brain. The codebase has forked a hundred times and documentation is scattered. Best for: budget builders willing to chase GitHub issues for a weekend.

3. OpenDogV3 ($1,200–2,000)

James Bruton's open-source big dog. BLDC motors with belt reductions, printed carbon-fiber frame, proper dynamics. Not a beginner project — but the design files are MIT-licensed and the YouTube build series is the best engineering documentation on the internet. Best for: engineers who want a realistic robot and don't mind spending $1,500 and a month.

4. Petoi Bittle ($250–350)

Cat-sized, kit-form, ships worldwide. Not strictly DIY — Petoi ships pre-cut parts and assembled servos — but the firmware is open and the design is hackable. Best for: gift-to-a-kid tier; adults outgrow it fast.

5. K-Scale Bolt ($3,000+)

New in 2025; K-Scale's open-source quadruped platform. BLDC joints, RL-capable, ROS 2 native, ships with a dev kit and Python SDK. Expensive but closest to "real robotics lab" experience you can buy without enterprise pricing. Best for: serious hobbyists and small research labs.

Where to start

First quadruped ever → Mini Pupper 2. Already soldered before → SpotMicro. Want it to actually walk well → OpenDogV3. Have a research budget → K-Scale Bolt. Want a toy → Bittle.

We'll have project pages for each of these with complete BOMs, build logs, and links to the simulator lessons once launched.