HitchBOT, a hitchhiking robot, has had its cross-country trip in the US end abruptly due to an incident involving vandalism in Philadelphia.
What happened?
The story of hitchBOT is one shared with many other poor, unfortunate souls. As innocent as the hitchhiking robot was, humanity still managed to find a way to assert itself on the unassuming robot. HitchBOT started its journey in Boston just two weeks ago.
On Saturday, the Canadian researchers responsible for creating hitchBOT reported that it was involved in an act of vandalism that left the robot in such a sad state of condition that the research team would be unable to repair it; hitchBOT never had a chance to make it out of the Northeast.
What was the purpose of hitchBOT?
HitchBOT was a child-sized robot created to participate in a social experiment that would help the research team understand how humans would interact with robots. It stood approximately 3 feet tall, and only weighed 25 pounds.
The robot also sported many features to help it interact with humans on a basic level, which included camera vision, a microphone, a speaker system, 3G and GPS capabilities.
Believe it or not, hitchBOT actually had a year’s worth of incident-free hitchhiking experience prior to the incident in Philadelphia. The world traveling robot had its first trip when it managed to hitchhike across Canada in 26 days. The trip started in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and ended in Victoria, British Columbia, which spanned a total of about 10,000 km.
After its trip to Canada, hitchBOT took a short break before heading across Germany in February of this year, and then setting out across the Netherlands in June.
Whether hitchBOT’s untimely demise is a product of American culture or if the robot just found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time is unclear.
What Does the Future Have in Store for HitchBOT?
The trip across the United States started in Marblehead, Massachusetts on July 17, and hitchBOT found itself equipped with a sign that read, “San Francisco or bust.” The robot took a decent tour around Boston — even catching a Red Sox Game — before it ultimately ended up in Philadelphia.
Currently, the creators of the project have no idea where hitchBOT has ended up since its battery is completely dead. The team of researchers will be conducting interviews tomorrow, where they will go into more detail about the future of hitchBOT.
