This paper presents the design, development and evaluation of an electromagnetic shock absorber which is to be integrated with a semi-active damper for energy harvesting vibration control of smart structures or vehicles in future studies. The proposed electromagnetic shock absorber mainly consists of a hydraulic motor and a DC generator. A scale-down prototype system and a test-bed which employs a pneumatic actuator were developed to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed electromagnetic shock absorber. Before the construction of the hardware, a preliminary simulation test was done in SimscapeTM physical modeling environment with the aim to ensure the correctness of the proposed design. The built device is also aimed for performing a Hardware/Controller in the Loop Simulation together with the simulation models of the semi-active damper, and the structure/vehicle. The results of the preliminary simulation and the hardware experiment are given to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed energy-harvesting shock absorbing device in this paper.