£8 from JUGGLING MISC page (link opens in a new window)

What do you get when you cross a yo-yo with juggling balls? The answer of course is Astrojax! This is a fairly new breed of toy as compared to the likes of diabolo or juggling balls which have been around for many hundreds of years. Every day Astrojax players around the world are discovering new tricks and exciting moves that were previously thought impossible. Astrojax is simply 3 weighted balls attached by a piece of string with the middle ball freely moving. The construction of an actual Astrojax is however fairly complex as each ball has a precision machined metal weight in order to provide maximum performance and smooth action whilst playing.

First Two Tricks

Vertical orbit	Do the start move (see above), and just keep going!
Horizontal Orbit	Use soft circular horizontal movements of the hand which contains the ball.

3 types of Astrojax trick

As an astrojax performer, there is 3 types of Astrojax trick that you may want to specialise in, or learn a bit of each. The choice is yours! I offer a quick description and some hints, but to find out more and to see excellent video clips, then please visit the best Astrojax website on the planet - www.astrojax.com !!

Juggling	Tug a bit harder on the balls so the far one comes up to hand height. Every time a ball comes up to this height, let go of the ball in your hand and grab that one! Keep going and you will soon get the hang of it. Important to practice this trick so it is smooth before you try and impress people with it! If you get good at this, then please note that the Guiness World Record is 3,208 consecutive catches by Maximilion Leidolf of Germany in 24mins 52secs on 12 February 2000!
Rebound Tricks	Try bouncing a ball off the floor, or kicking a ball lightly. Important to keep the pattern looking smooth.
String tricks	Wrapping the astrojax around various body parts. You may be able to let go of the string temporarily and catch it again once it has swung round the finger, leg etc. This is probably the most advanced of the 3 different kinds of Astrojax tricks!

JUGGLING MISC UNDER £10... Catch-it Cone Bean Trick Track Bounce Buddies Jumbo Jacob's Ladder Gorilla Marionette Puppet Shrilling Chicken & Cow Monster Feet Trick Rope Team Rope Mini Oidz Change Bag Astrojax Saturn Astrojax Aqua x 3 Phlat Ball XT Funkix Balls Shaker Cups Cigar Boxes	JUGGLING MISC £10 & OVER Beach Flingo Retro Space Hopper Competition Race Cups Lightwave Twirling Staff Zoingo Boingo Spinning Ball Chista Guy Heathcote Ball Stick Pedal Racer Juggling Knives Babache Big Pack

SCIENCE BEHIND WHY ASTROJAX WORKS:

Astrojax is a fascinating new toy illustrating a wide variety of basic science principles.

ROTATIONAL DYNAMICS: A metal weight concentrates the mass at the centre of the middle ball. This allows the middle ball to spin rapidly. An ice skater uses this principle when he brings in his arms during a twirl to spin faster.

PLANETARY/ORBITAL MOTION: During vertical orbits the outer ball orbits around the middle ball. During horizontal orbits, both balls orbit in perfect circles. Our earth orbits around the sun and our moon orbits around the earth in ellipses which are not quite circular, but pretty close!

HISTORY OF THE ASTROJAX

Astrojax was invented by the American physicist Larry Shaw who discovered the basic principles (see science bit above) while still at Graduate school. He was excited and very interested in all the complex patterns that this simple arrangement created and so he took time to work on the idea. It took nearly 2 years and hundreds of prototypes before Larry Shaw had his idea patented and the rest is HISTORY!

£8 from JUGGLING MISC page (link opens in a new window)