The Blind Juggling Machines can juggle balls without seeing them, and without catching them. Most of them, in fact, can juggle balls without any sensory feedback, such as sound or contact; this is achieved by exploiting the dynamics of these machines to achieve stable ball trajectories. This is very much in contrast to how most human beings would perform the same task: we would use our eyes to determine where to put our hands, for example.

The first in the series of the Blind Juggling Machines is the Blind Juggler. It can continuously juggle at heights of up to two meters.

The Swinging Juggler is essentially a Blind Juggler on a pendulum.

The Juggling Ensemble consists of a team of 32 Blind Jugglers, synchronized to produce complex sound patterns.

The Cloverleaf Juggler features four separate concave areas that have the same parabolic shape as the Blind Juggler, allowing the simultaneous juggling of 4 balls. Unlike the other juggling machines, the Cloverleaf Juggler has contact sensors on each paddle. This information is used to generate complex trajectories that would otherwise be impossible to realize without feedback.

Information on the research conducted with the Blind Juggling Machines…