Creating a spherical array Keep in mind that I am almost completely new to blender.

I was wondering how to create a spherical array. I have Googled and Googled, but I can only find ways to make circular arrays (two dimensional arrays).
Basically I want a way to make an array that simulates the proton and neutron structure of an atom. Atoms have both protons and neutrons in the nucleus, and I want a way to reproduce this using blender.



As you can see in this picture, the Uranium-235 atom has a heck-of-a-lot of protons and neutrons (ignore the one neutron shooting off due to nuclear fission). I do not need the disorganization of the actual protons and neutrons, I just want an array to simulate the structural look.

Thanks.

(Note: I am using the latest version of blender (2.74)
Add a sphere, copy it, scale it down in edit mode


Select the big sphere, go to the Object panel, under Duplication select Verts


Select the small sphere, hold shift, then select the big sphere. Hit CTRL+P and set the paren to Vertex


Result should look like that


You can now go select the big sphere again and go to edit mode, select all vertices. Use the "Randomize" option, I used a setting of 0.06.


You can use the Object info -> Random input together with a Math node to give them different colors.


This isn't an accurate representation of an atom I guess, but you said it's about simplicity and the visualisation aspect. 



P.S.: If you are worried about the top / bottom of the result, as there are more spheres, you can try another type of sphere for the big sphere, e.g. the icosphere, that has an even distribution of vertices.