Contact Juggling

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Re: aerotech vs. mathmos
Author: Rob
Date: 05-19-02 20:36

Teo, I have used both the Mathmos and the Aerotech balls for contact juggling. The Mathmos balls are 3 1/8 inches in diameter and are made of silicone, though they don't feel anything like the silicone balls used for bounce juggling. The surface is quite soft to the touch and fairly pleasant to handle/contact juggle. They are not perfectly spherical, there is a flat bit (just under 1/2 inch in diameter) where the charging socket is and a slight depression on the opposite side of the ball where you squeeze it to turn it on and off. These slight deformations don't really present much of a problem for contact juggling though. They glow very brightly when fully charged, but the glow isn't that even - you can see where the 3 leds are and there are dark areas where the switch and the charging socket are. This means that you can see it rolling rather than it giving that floaty weightless look of a ball with no reference points on it - it is still pretty though. For palm spinning they are OK providing you can keep them separate, 2 is fine, 3 of them is fairly tricky but definitely possible - I find it a bit of a stretch on the hand as they are slightly larger than would be ideal.

I don't know how much abuse they can take, but I would say definitely not as much as the aerotech balls, which were actually designed for juggling. The Mathmos balls are just supposed to be lamps.

The Aerotch balls are just over 2 1/2 inches in diameter and feel much more solid. They are coated in some kind of slightly rubbery plastic and they are very hard to the touch. They are perfectly spherical apart from the fairly large hole where the charging socket is. The glow is bright (not quite as bright as the Mathmos) and more even then the mathmos balls (they have 4 leds rather then 3) but still not completely even. They are a similar weight to an acrylic of the same size, and quite good for palm spinning, though obviously you need to keep them separate because they really stick together.

The Mathmos balls retailed at �39.99 last year when I got mine, but I believe they may be cheaper now. Aerotech balls cost from �30 (red, orange, yellow) to �79 (programmable red/blue) - see their website for more details.

I hope this helps you decide,

Rob

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