Pedal powered machine contest from Specialized

Tinkerers, start your tinkering! The Innovate or Die – You and up to 4 friends make a machine that “transforms pedaling energy into a new and useful purpose”, then post a 2 minute video on Youtube. Judges from Specialized, Google, and Goodby, Silverstein and Partners (CA based ad agency) will pick a winner based on creativity, design, and environmental impact. Top prize is a cool $5k, plus a bike from Specialized’s new ‘Globe’ line of bikes. You’ve got until December 15th, now go!

Specialized’s new bikes look nice – clean single speed aesthetic, suspension-free frames, disc brakes all around and internally geared hubs on the higher end bikes.

I couldn’t find much mention of what’s to become of your new machine, other than a brief mention that you have to keep it in running condition for a year. The sponsors will, however, be hanging on to the media you submit pretty tightly. Prepare to be remixed if you win.

I’d like to see the them take the next step here – if a winning pedal powered machine really does have some design, environmental and creative chutzpah maybe they could pony up some engineering know-how to do a limited production run?

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