Monta Elkins Builds an Oscilloscope Ornament for the Holidays

For many makers, the holidays are simply an excuse to make elaborate electronic decorations. These are the kinds of projects that would be too frivolous for any other time of the year, but are perfect for the festive season. The only real question is how elaborate you want to get. If you’re YouTube hacker Monta Elkins, the answer is really elaborate, as proven by his oscilloscope ornament!

You probably think I mean a tiny digital oscilloscope mounted on a Christmas tree ornament, but you’d be wrong. What I actually mean is that he displayed an ornament that looks like a Christmas tree on a full-size analog oscilloscope. Sure, it’s absurd and would tip over any reasonably-sized Christmas tree, but isn’t that what the season is all about?

To display the Christmas tree image, Elkins needed a signal for the oscilloscope to monitor. He used a Teensy 3.5 to generate that signal using code that creates lines plotted on the ‘scope. An oscilloscope isn’t just a regular old display of course, which means the code needs to generate a signal that is interpreted as a function and plotted as a line — and then repeat that for every line in the drawing. The finished “ornament” is probably the most elaborate conceivable way to show a simple Christmas tree doodle on a CRT, and that’s what makes it perfect.