I've been thinking about what one could do with a sphere whose surface could be deformed slightly -- sort of like those deformable mirrors on modern astronomical telescopes. But I was thinking more about mechanical effects rather than optical effects. So a soccer ball with a somewhat flexible surface material covers a number small actuators which can dimple the surface outwards and inwards by a relatively small amount. Thus, the ball could still be waterproof, for example, and thus protect any electronics inside. Although I initially conceived of this as a *regular Platonic solid*, with modern micro- electronics, the arrangement of actuators doesn't even have to be regular, and indeed could be more-or-less randomly distributed around the surface of the sphere. The soccer ball is relatively well-balanced, so any electronics within would have to be distributed in a mostly symmetrical fashion. So what could such a ball do? If the ball were flying through the air, it could set up asymmetric drag and change its trajectory to some degree. Even if it weren't *guided*, it could still move in a random and impossible-to-predict manner which would thoroughly confuse even the best goalies. If the ball were rolling along a surface, it could change direction and possibly even speed up/slow down if the dimples were large enough and suitably synchronized. I got this idea by watching some of the existing and planned Mars landers, and instead of merely using this idea as part of the landing, I asked myself why the "ball" couldn't simply BE the lander itself, rather than merely a protective shield. One problem might be that the soccer ball finds its way into an appropriate sized hole that makes it impossible for the ball to roll itself out. In this case, it might simply blow up a much larger balloon, climb inside, and by continuing to roll around *inside* the much larger balloon, it might maneuver the larger balloon out of the hole. In order to do this, the soccer ball would have to be able to *climb* up the inside of the larger balloon. However, this is a much easier problem than trying to climb up an arbitrary surface. Of course, the original soccer ball itself could also be an inflated structure, which could be stored in a much smaller volume prior to inflation, and possibly even be used when navigating -- e.g., to get between two trees that might otherwise block the soccer ball's progress. Note that these ideas could also make a "smart" baseball/softball or tennis ball which might be good for "training" (wink, wink). In the case of balls moving through the air, little actuated "hairs" (cilia) might have a greater ability to effect asymmetrical drag. One of the easiest applications would be balls that return on their own -- e.g., during batting or tennis practise or soccer goal-kicking practise. Who knows? With the amount of money involved in international soccer, perhaps such things already exist?