Christmas Tree of Death

Summary

The Christmas Tree of Death was a previous electronics project created by Sean Hodgins that featured a Raspberry Pi as its controller. The project is briefly mentioned in the episode "I Built the Craziest LED Mask" when Sean repurposes components from it for his new LED mask build. While the specific details of what made the Christmas tree project earn its dramatic name are not elaborated upon in this episode, it served as a source of spare parts for Sean's current work on the LED Face Mask Project.

Details

In the episode "I Built the Craziest LED Mask," Sean references the Christmas Tree of Death while explaining the controller setup for his new LED mask. He mentions salvaging the Raspberry Pi from this previous project to serve as the brains of his current build.

As Sean notes while working on the mask controller:

"actually this is the one I ripped off the Christmas tree of death"

The project appears to have been completed some time before this episode, and Sean had preserved it long enough that the Raspberry Pi could be harvested for reuse. This practice of repurposing components from old projects demonstrates Sean's maker philosophy of building upon and learning from previous work, even if it means cannibalizing earlier creations for new ones.

People Involved

• Sean Hodgins — Creator of the Christmas Tree of Death project and the person who repurposed its Raspberry Pi for the LED mask

Why It Came Up

The Christmas Tree of Death was mentioned when Sean needed to explain where he sourced the Raspberry Pi he was using as the controller for his LED mask project. Rather than purchasing a new controller, he salvaged one from this previous build, bringing up the project by name in the process. The reference serves as a brief aside that highlights Sean's tendency to reuse and recycle components across multiple projects.