(rough sawing) (ball crashes) Hi, I'm Deysi from Design Squad Global.

We got an idea sent in to the website for a light-up soccer ball.

This way, you can practice at any time, even in the dark.

When I first thought about how to solve this problem, which was to design and build a light-up soccer ball, I brainstormed a few ideas.

One idea I had was to stick on glow-in-the-dark stars.

These stars are pretty cool.

I can stick them to the ball and they lay flat, and that way, they don't get in the way when the ball rolls on the ground.

But these glow-in-the-dark stars need to be charged.

They don't last a long time, and they're not strong enough.

So, I need to come up with a better solution.

Then, I tried wrapping the ball with Christmas lights.

Now, these lights are very bright.

But they make it impossible for the ball to roll smoothly.

They're also fragile, so if I kick it really hard, lightbulbs will break.

And I also have to connect it to an outlet, so this idea?

Won't work.

(crash) This is my third idea.

The EL wire!

EL stands for electroluminescent.

EL wire is a copper wire coated with a material called phosphor.

Phosphor makes the copper wire glow when you run electricity through it.

The EL wire is powered by the batteries inside this pack.

The EL wire is pretty thin and flexible.

I can bend, sculpt, and wrap it around the ball easily.

The wire is nice and bright.

There are no lightbulbs that could break.

And, because it's powered by the battery pack, I don't even need to plug it into an outlet.

The ball rolls pretty smoothly with the wire on, but this battery pack is a problem.

I can't just stick it on the outside, because... it could possibly break.

But maybe I could put the battery pack inside the soccer ball.

The good thing is that this is a foam soccer ball that I can cut in half, install the battery pack, fasten the two parts together, and the ball will roll just fine.

Now, I'm going to be using a saw to cut my soccer ball in half.

So, make sure that, if you use a saw, to get an adult's permission.

(rough sawing) Woohoo!

Look at that: my two halves.

Okay, so, I want to make sure that I don't cut too big of a hole inside my soccer ball.

I want my battery pack to be nice and snug.

Well, look at this!

It fits beautifully.

So, I think I'm going to drill a hole right here.

There it goes, there it goes.

Yes!

(chuckling) That's good, that's pretty good.

That's good, good, good!

I should be able to attach this here.

The only issue is that I need to be able to get into the battery pack so I can change the battery when this one dies.

I can't glue the two halves together.

But maybe I could use Velcro.

It's strong enough to keep the ball together.

And I can easily take it apart so I can get to the battery pack and change it.

This Velcro is very sticky in the back.

This is a sticky situation.

I'm going to turn this on, and now I'm just going to keep threading my wire around this half.

Sort of like sewing the ball with lights.

Okay, here I go... See?

(chuckling) The good thing about EL wire is that you can cut the excess wire off, the part you're not going to be using, and the rest of the wire will still light up.

Lights, please!

Whoa, this is so cool!

(laughing) Lights, please!

Now, this works great!

But, if I had a little bit more time, I would probably use another battery pack and a different color to light up the other half of my soccer ball.

The only thing that I'm not too crazy about is the use of batteries.

Once batteries die, you throw them away.

But wouldn't it be cool if you somehow used the energy from the rotating ball to power up the lights?

That's something to think about.

Do you have other design ideas for a light-up soccer ball?

We want to hear all about them.

Send your designs to the Design Squad Global website.

We'd love to see what you could come up with.

So, let's play!

Goal!

(laughing) (humming)