When hitchBOT the hitchhiking robot started his journey in Boston two weeks ago he wanted to see the entire US. The robot is immobile on its own and gets to travel around with the help of kind strangers who take a look at this contraption with thumb raised skyward as in hitching a ride, with a grin on its digital face, and a sign taped around its cylindrical head which says “San Francisco or Bust”. “hitchBOT’s designers even insist it had a personality that liked music, listening to people talk about philosophy, and, of course, traveling and meeting new people”. The hitchBOT crossed Canada in just 26 days last year where it also attended a comic convention and became a wedding guest.
Attached to the robot, which had successfully made its way across Canada in a previous trip, was a bucket list of items to complete, which included going to Las Vegas and hearing jazz music in New Orleans.
With the robot destroyed, Zeller said, she was most concerned about children who loved hitchBOT and followed it on social media. The creators had been sent a vandalized image of the robot but could not track its location because the battery is presumably dead. But he stressed that many kids who adored the robot were left heartbroken. A Global Positioning System in the robot tracked its location, and a camera randomly snapped photos about every 20 minutes to document its travels.
Travelling circuit… A couple embrace as Dan Winske wheels hitchBOT through the stands before a baseball game at Fenway Park between the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigerson. “Unfortunately, hitchBOT was vandalized overnight in Philadelphia; sometimes bad things happen to good robots”. HitchBOT even spent an entire week on the road with an unnamed heavy metal band. However, despite the tragic incident they plan to continue the experiment at same later point, “We know that many of hitchBOT’s fans will be disappointed, but we want them to be assured that this great experiment is not over”.
