Team Instructables participated in the Red Bull Creation Contest this past weekend: a harrowing 72 hours of intense building. We had an amazing and exhausting time, and are still recovering from lost sleep and too many energy drinks. See the original post about the build here.

The build is over, but the contest is not! Voting starts July 25th. The contest hosts are collecting some media from every team, which will go on their website. But we thought you deserved the first look at what we made:

Psycho Scooter Scramble
the blind-driving electric wheelchair game

Psycho Scooter Scramble is a game for four: two riders and two pilots. The trusting rider is strapped into an electric wheelchair, placing their life in the hands of a blindfolded pilot. The pilot controls the rider's careening wheelchair from the sidelines based on shouted headset commands from the rider.

The basic mechanic is simple: players must drive across the court to get a ball from a stand, then drive back across to put the ball in a hoop. This action is repeated until all four balls have been scored or the timer runs out. However, since there is an inevitable disconnect between the pilots’ steering and their teammates’ intentions, wheelchairs zigzag across the court at high speeds, colliding with each other, ball stands, the scoreboard, and everything else, making full use of the custom steel bumpers and creating hilarious mayhem for the benefit of onlookers and players alike.

It's kind of like this:

(wonderful descriptive graphic by fjordcarver)

I've uploaded our best gameplay (and a few build) photographs to this post.

Here is a video of how it works:
More videos can be found on Instructables TV.

Big thanks from the Instructables Build Team!


Thanks also to our last-minute build helpers: Eric, Jessy, Matt, and Jake. We couldn't have done it without you.


We really can't thank you enough for supporting us in this contest and in our build. Particularly on the last day, is our state of sleep deprivation and occasional desperation, we needed the emotional support of everybody in our Instructables community. (Special shout-out to fjordcarver for exceptional support over the LiveStream.)

Final thought: This game is awesome. Win or lose, we're glad we did it, because there is truly no game in the world that is quite like Psycho Scooter Scramble. Also, we learned that you can get a sweet electric wheelchair on Craigslist for under $200, and have some idea how to hack it. And that knowledge is priceless.

Look for an Instructable, coming soon, on how to make Psycho Scooter Scramble yourself!

Starting July 25th, this project and those of the other 11 teams can be found here. Laugh, cry, enjoy, and remember to vote! If we win, we get to show this off at World Maker Fair in New York. (And yes, if you're there, you can play too.)