LED lightning balls

[Alex Eisenhut]

During my walk along the canal here last night, it occurred to me that it would be entertaining to toss something into the water that would emit brief, intense flashes to light up the water. I suppose at night you'd see the bottom against the dark sky.

Anything like this exist or do I have to build it? Since it's in the water, hey, free heat-sink. Oh, and my RC boat would drag them back to shore.

I don't want some weak-sauce illumination, I want nuclear-level white flashes. Like, it would light up people's faces. 

I don't know. I think that's what the Germans call a "schnappsidee", or in my case, a Caol Ila 12 idea.

[TerraHertz]

Xenon strobe sounds like the way to go. Does anyone still sell disposable film cameras? The film developers used to end up with bins full of those cameras, and they all had perfectly good flash circuits that ran off one or two aaa batteries. In my experience they were happy to give the used cameras away.

Don't forget to include a prominent numeric LCD display, counting down to zero. For more hysterical headlines, and so the terrorism charges stick properly.

How deep and clear is the water?
Wouldn't it be more fun to have the flash go off at rare, randomly timed intervals, and never during daylight, plus have the balls sink to the bottom after a while (or be neutrally buoyant at say four feet deep), so they are really hard for anyone to find.