After reading the Kite Balloon note and the "Pufferfish" note, and hearing Shannon's request to learn how to knit nets, I came upon replacement nets at the fishing store.

I began to think about how to "spanx" a weather balloon into shape by rigging replacement nets together into a shape (with paracord? fishing twine?).

Friday i came across these in a regional box store, which is polyester, not nylon. But it has the same mesh with the addition of a light, shaped wire frame. If one overlaid it onto a balloon, it would look like a Chiton.

Since I don't know how to knit net webbing yet, much less design webbing to shape a round balloon, I thought we could rig the hampers together like a corset to make a shape using differential tension--in the rigging and the hampers themselves.

At the ends, the laundry bags / rounded net scraps could be lightly fastened just to secure the balloon in place.

After sleeping on it, I think a "triple chiton" (3 hampers) would be best to try first. I'd

1) modify the hampers and bags 2) lace the hampers together loosely 3) inflate the balloon inside the hamper to see if the sizes work out 4) lace, tighten, and adjust the "corset" strings to get the shape right (big question marks go here) 5) attach the ends to secure the balloon in place (perhaps unnecessary)

Once the differential shaping problem is confronted (solved?), then one could start thinking about how to rig fins, a payload, and multiple guidelines.