Hollow Ice Balls With Lights Inside - Outdoors or Indoors - Science, Art and Fun!

"https://youtu.be/kxeA63yjguk"

One cold winter, I thought it would be fun to put a balloon filled with water on a saucer outside on our windowsill to freeze. I did this repeatedly. I've also frozen water-filled balloons in our freezer.

To my surprise, this didn't happen in a simple way (say, ice forming gradually, from the top down) but instead gave rise to interesting patterns and shapes. When only part-frozen, the remaining water could be emptied, leaving a hollow ball - sometimes, with ice ribs at the sphere's surface, separated by parallel gaps - suggesting lines of longitude on a globe - and with astonishingly-delicate (almost paper-thin) sheets and needles of ice, pointing inwards from these ribs.

These ornate ice balls are beautiful!

With various kinds of battery LED light put inside, they can be placed outside (maybe in a snow-covered garden, or on a balcony) for night-time ornaments; or they can be used indoors, at a party amid snacks and drinks or on a dinner table (until they melt, of course!)

Colour-changing LED globe-lights put inside them gave an effect that I found especially delightful, with a number of ice-balls set around our garden. The batteries in these little lights lasted whole nights through.

These hollow globes could be interesting to study: Why do they form this way?

Something for a science project investigation, maybe..

As a slight breeze can set a balloon quivering, I guessed there might be standing waves, with some parts of its rubber skin relatively mobile and others parts left as nodes that hardly move. Perhaps ribs of ice formed where there was least disturbance, and the gaps were left where there was more disturbance: inhibiting ice-crystal growth there. But I could be wrong!

However, even if made indoors in a domestic freezer, a part-frozen balloon ice-ball can display such features. Are vibrations from the refrigerator pump motor the cause of such effects, there, instead of natural air movements being the cause?

Cross-referencing with Cymatics (patterns from sounds).

Meanwhile, children and adults can simply have fun with this Instructable!

BALLOONS : ordinary rubber toy balloons. (I used ones labelled as "9-inch" or "12-inch", but did not fill them as tight full of water as I'd inflate them with air!)

WATER: any clean, clear water - from a tap/faucet, bottled, or a spring or stream!

SCISSORS or a SHARP KNIFE : to pierce the balloon once part-frozen, releasing both the skin and any excess water.

SAUCER, BOWL or DISH : to support the balloon in place while it freezes.

COLD! : FREEZING WEATHER outdoors; or an indoor FREEZER, or FREEZER COMPARTMENT of a refrigerator.

LIGHTS: Some small LED torch, LED tealight, LED string lights or (best!) colour-changing LED item.

Fill it from a faucet (or other source). Be ready to support it as it gets heavier! Knot the neck.

Sit your balloon somewhere cold and steady, maybe in a bowl, either outdoors or else in a fridge/freezer compartment.

You may have to wait some hours.. or even overnight.

Check if your balloon feels partly solid but with soft spots, with water inside. If not yet, leave it longer..

But if it's ready, pierce the skin!

Try some different lights (be aware - some may not suit getting wet.)

See what different pleasing effects you can obtain!