This Adorable Circuit Sculpture Duck Lights Up When Plugged Into USB

Circuit sculptures are a great way for makers to express their creativity and show their more artistic side. To the uninitiated, all circuits tend to look alike; they’re just wires or PCB traces connecting mysterious chips. But circuit sculptures can take whatever form the creator wants, adding beauty to the functionality of the circuit. That’s certainly the case with Sander van de Bor’s adorable circuit sculpture duck that lights up when plugged into USB.

You can illuminate an LED by simply attaching the leads to an appropriate battery with an inline resistor, but things get a little more complex if you want the LED to blink in programmable patterns. In this case, that was achieved with the use of a Microchip ATtiny412 microcontroller. This circuit sculpture only has two LEDs, so the patterns aren’t particularly complex. But they can be programmed to behave in a variety of ways. There is no battery, so the duck only comes to life when it is plugged into a USB port — at least after the supercapacitor is discharged.

It is, of course, the sculpture itself that makes this project stand out. The red 5mm LEDs are the eyes of the duck and the USB connector is the beak. A large 5.5V supercapacitor forms the duck’s body. The ATtiny412 is tucked away unobtrusively inside the head. Other components are purely decorative, including the through-hole resistors that make up the wings and the transistors used for the feet. All of the components are tied together using 0.032” diameter brass rods. This circuit sculpture duck may not have any practical purpose, but it would sure look cute sitting on a desk.