rubber duckyno.86

SPECIMEN_001.IMGquack.exe running
A yellow rubber duck on a blue base, its head mounted on a 3D-printed four-bar neck, poised over a white mechanical keyboard

an ai-powered mechanical duck that listens to your code, then pecks the fix onto the keyboard.

program
MIT Media Lab · Tangible Media Group
team
Q. Kuang · Y. Wang · L. Huang · K. Zhang · H. Tang
prize
HARD MODE 2026, MIT AI Hardware Hackathon: Anthropic Prize Winner
year
A.D. 2026
make it peck watch the duck

01mission briefing

ABOUT.TXT42 lines · 1.4 kb

programmers talk to rubber ducks to reason about code. this one listens, and then fixes your code itself, pecking at the keyboard with its oversized bill.

> hypothesis

We built it to stress-test LLMs in the physical world. The bill can't hit single keys precisely, so the duck constantly makes and corrects errors while replanning its movements. We gave it a grumpy personality: it quacks, complains, and begrudgingly types through its Sisyphean task.

> question

It pulls “vibe coding” into the physical world, and asks: if humans can continuously adapt, re-plan and correct their actions in real time, can AI do the same?

02peck simulator

it misses. that's the point.

A working model of the duck's motion: the same three servos, the same circle-intersection kinematics, the same clumsy bill. Give it something to type and watch it aim, miss, complain, backspace, and slowly get better as the camera calibrates its aim.

KEYBOARD.TOPtop view · click a key to peck it
NECK.SIDEik · circle intersection
base
0°
left
0°
right
0°
QUACK.EXEeditor + log

~/duck $

  1. duck> ready. what do you want typed. quack.
pecks
0
misses
0
fixes
0
accuracy
–
aim offset
8.2 mm

model, not footage: miss rates and offsets are simulated. Keys are drawn at the standard 19 mm pitch.

03kinematics

two circles, one neck.

The neck is a four-bar linkage with two degrees of freedom, extension and pecking, driven by two servos. To put the bill on a key, the microcontroller solves inverse kinematics with a compact circle-intersection method. Drag the yellow target.

IK_SOLVER.SIMdrag the target
  1. the shoulder circle.The upper arm pivots at the shoulder, so the elbow must sit somewhere on a circle of radius L₁ around it.
  2. the target circle.The forearm has to end at the target, so the elbow must also sit on a circle of radius L₂ around the target.
  3. where they cross.The two circles meet at two points. Each is a valid elbow, and each is a different pose.
  4. never flip.Always keep the upper one. The neck never jumps between solutions, so motion stays stable, and the maths is light enough to run on the microcontroller.
reach
–
left servo
–
right servo
–
solutions
2 · keep upper

04hardware

three servos and a bill.

One servo in the base swings the whole neck across the keyboard. Two more drive the four-bar neck: one reaches, one pecks. Everything else is 3D-printed, in several colours.

DWG_RD-01exploded view
Exploded line drawing of the duck's mechanism, from the head frame at the top down to the base servo
  1. head frameCarries the duck's head and its oversized bill, the part that actually strikes the keys.
  2. 4-bar linkageTurns two servo rotations into the neck's two motions: extension and pecking.
  3. left + right servosThe neck's two drivers, mounted side by side at the foot of the linkage.
  4. custom connectorsPrinted brackets that lock the neck assembly onto the turntable.
  5. stop pin + gearThe gear carries the base servo's rotation up to the neck; the stop pin keeps the swing within range.
  6. ball bearingsA ring of bearings lets the turntable spin smoothly under the weight of the neck.
  7. base + base servoSwings the whole neck left and right across the keyboard.
yaw
base servo
reach
four-bar neck
peck
four-bar neck

Multi-colour printing with kind help from Richard Zhang.

05system

a duck with a master mind.

Mechanics, audio, sensing and AI run as separate modules that talk over HTTP. A central server hands out tasks and the modules report back. Claude is the master mind, and the loop only closes when the code on screen is right.

System loop: you talk to a text editor; the main server passes your prompt and the text diff to Claude, which returns a tool path, intended keys and quips; ElevenLabs voices the quips; the duck firmware drives the servos and four-bar neck so the bill pecks the keyboard; an ESP32 camera and Gemini check where the bill landed and suggest a calibration; the keystrokes land back in the editor. spoken prompt · diff prompt · diff tool path · quips quips + quacks tool path / ok peck watches calibration keystrokes land in the editor youtalking through the bug text editorwith speech-to-text main serverthe bridge claudethe master mind elevenlabsthe duck's voice duck firmwareruns the tool path base servo left + right servosreach + peck 4-bar linkage duck headthe bill keyboard esp32 camera geminiimage analysis
01 / 08
  1. You talk through the bug. The editor turns your voice into a prompt.
  2. The spoken prompt and the current text diff go to the main server: the bridge.
  3. Claude, the master mind, reads the prompt, the diff and any calibration advice.
  4. It answers with a tool path, the keys it means to hit, and a few quips and quacks.
  5. ElevenLabs turns the quips into the duck's grumpy voice.
  6. The firmware runs the tool path. The base swings, the neck reaches, the bill pecks.
  7. An ESP32 camera watches the bill. Gemini compares where it landed with the keys it meant to hit, and suggests a calibration.
  8. The keystrokes land in the editor. The new diff goes back to Claude, and the loop runs again until the code is right.

06transmission log

the duck went viral.

Within days of posting, clips of Rubber Ducky pecking through code spread across YouTube, Instagram and X, and were picked up by tech, design and AI communities.

views
280K+
likes
10K+
trending channels
03
REEL_01.IG9:16

> the duck meets its keyboard for the first time.

REEL_02.IG9:16

> pecking through a stubborn bug, complaining the whole time.

07build log

from bench to bill.

  1. IMG_01
    The first assembled duck pecking at a white keyboard

    first pecks.The neck meets a real keyboard.

  2. IMG_02
    A printed base gearbox held in front of its CAD model on a laptop

    the geared base.From CAD to print.

  3. IMG_03
    A laptop running a simulation of the neck's motion

    simulation.Servo ranges tuned in software first.

  4. IMG_04
    Measuring the duck's neck with a steel ruler

    measuring reach.The neck against a ruler.

  5. IMG_05
    A blue multi-colour 3D print of the duck's wave-patterned base on the printer bed

    multi-colour print.The wave base, layer by layer.

  1. make the error the point.A bill can't hit single keys precisely. Instead of hiding that, the duck lives in constant correction. That's the experiment.
  2. give it a personality.Grumpy quips turn every miss into something you watch, not something you wait for.
  3. close the loop with eyes.The editor's text diff says what went wrong; the camera says where the bill actually landed.
  4. keep the brain off the duck.A central server dispatches tasks to separate modules over HTTP, so each part can fail, retry and report on its own.
  5. solve it on the chip.Simulated servo ranges plus a compact IK keep every peck stable and computable on a microcontroller.

08crew manifest

the humans behind the duck.

Five designers, makers and engineers from the MIT Media Lab and Harvard GSD.

tangible interface

09origin studio

we design the future of ai hardware.

Tangible Interface is a research and design studio building a new generation of physical objects in which artificial intelligence can think, move and live. Rubber Ducky is its first transmission, and more AI hardware experiments are already on the bench.

  • tangible objects + ai behaviour
  • hardware research × industrial design
  • boston, ma
follow @tangible_interface ↗
SPECIMEN_002.IMGrubber ducky 86
Rubber Ducky 86: the duck on a beige desktop base with a small screen and a ring of keys

10specifications

rubber ducky 86.

type
AI-powered mechanical rubber duck
motion
3 servos: base yaw on a geared, ball-bearing turntable; left + right servos on a four-bar neck (reach, peck)
kinematics
inverse kinematics on the microcontroller, circle-intersection method, non-flipping
mind
Claude: tool paths, intended keys, quips
voice
ElevenLabs
eyes
ESP32 camera + Gemini image analysis, for calibration
interface
custom text editor with speech-to-text
system
HTTP: a central server assigns tasks; distributed modules execute and report back
fabrication
multi-colour 3D printing
year
2026
program
MIT Media Lab · Tangible Media Group
prize
HARD MODE 2026, MIT AI Hardware Hackathon · Anthropic Prize Winner
team
Quincy Kuang, Yuhan Wang, Lingdong Huang, Kai Zhang, Haoheng Tang
my role
hardware design + research
studio
Tangible Interface
project siterabourackey.com ↗