What better way to compete with your friends than going head-to-head on a pair of bucking bulls? The Madagascar Institute brought that concept to fruition last week with their Dueling Mechanical Bulls during a Google I/O after hours party. From Hackett, Madagascar’s founder:

The bulls are built as near to identical as we could manage: same motors, same gearing, same motion, and are both controlled by one set of controls– what happens to one bull happens to the other, maintaining the same level of difficulty. The ride lasts until one rider flies off, leaving the other rider victorious.

Check out the video and their site for a close up look at how this fantastic spectacle came together. Oh, and by the way, I hereby challenge my fellow MAKE colleagues to outride me on these bulls at the first opportunity we get. Who’s in?

BY Matt Richardson

Matt Richardson is a Brooklyn-based creative technologist, contributing editor for MAKE magazine, and co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi. He's also the owner of Awesome Button Studios, a technology consultancy. Highlights from his work include the Descriptive Camera (a camera which outputs a text description instead of a photo) and The Enough Already (a DIY celebrity-silencing device). Matt's work has been featured at The Nevada Museum of Art, The Rome International Photography Festival, Milan Design Week and has garnered attention from The New York Times, Wired, and New York Magazine.

2 Responses to Compete Head-to-Head with Dueling Mechanical Bulls

  1. Matt, we did ride these at I/O last week. (Photo proof). Nick and I both lasted about .2 seconds before we both went end over end and ended up on our backs. It was great seeing Becky and Hackett tho!

  2. Goli Mohammadi on said:

    That’s bull, Jake :) I’ll outride you any day, Mr. Spurlock!

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