Magic (washing up dispensor) balls!

Ha! They worked! I was a bit worried when I saw all the bits of tools and electronics spread out, but explorers work much better than scouts, and I guess you were all paying attention and just teasing by pretending to be mucking about...
Magic!

hmmm... the video doesnt work quite so well - the iphone shutter speed is faster than your eye, and my night time canon shutter is slower than the eye! 

All part of my vague obsession with taking pictures in the dark...

The PIC chips are very flexible and you could use these to control xmas lights, or change the colour of the magic balls or be a mood light with a fade between colours! If you want to re-program your magicball, here's the program on the chip now - if you are interested I can email it to you and you can edit it, send to me, and I can reflash your PIC12F675 easily (or you can get a PICKIT1 programmer quite cheap). JAL is a free software language off the web to compile and create the hex files.