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stanley604318 karma

I spent the best summer of my life helping Claude Shannon build a mechanical diorama of three juggling clowns. Have you seen this device?

I can confirm what you say about his amazing ability to tinker and invent. Plus, I have the honor of having learned to juggle and pass indian clubs from him.

stanley60475 karma

He was an amazing juggler; as I mentioned elsewhere (sorry for my crazy editing in this thread -- I got too excited about seeing an AMA about Claude Shannon) he taught me to juggle indian clubs and to pass balls and clubs. Your quote exemplifies his modesty.

His house (where I went to work each day) was filled with marvelous gadgets and smart toys. Plus he had a nice workshop in the basement, where I spent much of my time, fabricating parts for the diorama.

I could tell you a million things about that summer and that job. What a great, and good, man.

Edit: at least during that summer, his favorite way of solving a thorny problem was to put a Pete Fountain tape in his Walkman, sip a cold drink and walk around the house, thinking.

stanley60453 karma

TIL. Fascinating.

stanley60431 karma

An Old Fashioned, iirc.

stanley60427 karma

I spent the best summer of my life helping Claude Shannon build a mechanical diorama of three juggling clowns. Are you familiar with this device?

EDIT: Aargh, I deleted the post you responded to before I saw your response. Sorry! Here's what you responded:

Wow! Yes, we are familiar, but definitely not in the way that you are. The best we could do is to dig up the photographs and find a long-lost interview with a juggling magazine in which Shannon talks about these juggling clowns, with praise: “The greatest numbers jugglers of all time cannot sustain their record patterns for more than a few minutes, but my little clowns juggle all night and never drop a prop!”

So fascinating that you got to build them, and of course, we have a million questions. But maybe just letting you respond to this and talk about what it was like to be at his elbow building with him. How did you get introduced to him? What prompted him to build that diorama? Tell us everything!

I went to school with Claude's daughter, and had some skills tinkering with electronics and computers. He was looking for a helper and she recommended me. At first, he wanted to build an actual robot (much like he did later on with his W.C. Fields robot). But then he settled on the idea of a diorama showing the (at that time) record-holding juggling performances.

I would just do whatever odd job needed doing; he was obviously the brains of the operation. :-) He taught me to mill poker chips on a Bridgeport, and to use a lathe to accurately drill holes in the middle of said chips. (The chips were used for the pin-juggling clown to get the proper rotation of the pins).

He was an amazing man, and I loved talking and working with him.