Mohit Bhoite's Latest Lunar Lander Circuit Sculpture Is a Cute Desktop Temperature Monitor

Circuit sculptor Mohit Bhoite has unveiled his latest design, once again drawing inspiration from the Apollo Lunar Module landing craft: a Microchip ATtiny861A-powered temperature monitor.

"A little seven segment temperature monitor using [the] ATtiny861A and [Bosch Sensortec] BME280 sensor. Powered by a CR2032 coin cell. [I] have not named it yet."

As with Bhoite's earlier work, there's no printed circuit board holding all the components together. Instead, the microcontroller, sensor, battery, and the five-digit seven-segment LCD panel — which displays the current temperature, two digits plus a decimal place with a "C" to indicate the report is in degrees Celsius — are connected via the same 20 AWG hard wire which forms the shape of the sculpture.

Bhoite is well-known for his free-form circuit sculptures, which have ranged from tiny robots to desktop VU meters — but has only recently begun experimenting with putting practical devices inside designs inspired by lunar lander vehicles, beginning with a four-bit kitchen timer earlier this year.

"The lander form factor is so versatile," Bhoite writes of his recent designs. "I’m still playing with proportions to get the cuteness dialed in." Power draw, meanwhile, is rated at 20mA active and 10µA in sleep mode.

More information is available in Bhoite's Twitter thread, but the design had not been uploaded to his sculptures page at the time of writing.