Photos By Bart Nagel
Steve Wozniak (B.S.’86 EECS), in yellow shirt, plays Segway polo every other Sunday with his team, the Silicon Valley Aftershocks.
Polo has gone high tech. The game originated in ancient Persia
as a way of training cavalry units on horseback. Since then spinoffs have been
played in swimming pools and even on camels and yaks. Now they’re playing it on
Segways.
Steve Wozniak (B.S.’86 EECS), executive vice president of
Acquicor Technology and co-creator of Apple Computers in 1976, is a big fan of
the fledgling sport. In September, his team, the Silicon Valley Aftershocks,
won the 2007 Woz Challenge Cup, the second official international tournament
for Segway polo.
“I was one of the first consumers to get a Segway in 2002,”
says Wozniak, familiarly known as Woz. “I loved it so much I bought another,
and another. I have about 10 now.” The game originated in 2004 and is played in
teams of five. Players can travel up to 12 miles per hour, so helmets are
required and the mallets are padded for safety.
“Segway polo rules are like horse polo’s with a few
modifications, like the ones they’ve made up to stop me,” says Woz. “I learned
to chip the ball over the defender’s head; they made a rule that you can’t
score that way.”
The Segway personal transporter, an upright two-wheeled
moving device powered by computers and sensors, went on the market in 2001 and
sells for about $5000. It was invented by Dean Kamen as an automobile
substitute for short solo trips.—Courtesy Corporate Board Member magazine
