hitchBOT was a Canadian

hitchhiking Hitchhiking (also known as thumbing, autostop or hitching) is a means of transportation that is gained by asking individuals, usually strangers, for a ride in their car or other vehicle. The ride is usually, but not always, free. Nomads hav ...

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

created by professors David Harris Smith of

McMaster University McMaster University (McMaster or Mac) is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood and Westdale, adjacent to the Royal Botanical Ga ...

and Frauke Zeller of

Ryerson University Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU or Toronto Met) is a public university, public research university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District, Toronto, Garden District, although i ...

in 2013. It gained international attention for successfully hitchhiking across

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, but in 2015 its attempt to hitchhike across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

ended when it was stripped and decapitated in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

Description

Smith, who had hitchhiked across Canada 3 times, and Zeller had "designed the robot to learn about how people interact with technology and ask the question, 'Can robots trust human beings?'" The robot was not able to walkit completed its "hitchhiking" journeys by "asking" to be carried by those who picked it up. The robot was able to carry on basic conversation and talk about facts, and was designed to be a robotic traveling companion while in the vehicle of the driver who picked it up. As a social experiment, it was also given social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The robot had a cylindrical body composed mainly of a plastic bucket, with two flexible "arms" and two flexible "legs" attached to the torso. The top section of the body was transparent, containing a screen which displayed eyes and a mouth, making the robot approximately humanoid in external appearance. It was small and had a look the team described as "yard-sale chic", to evoke trust and empathy, and had a child's car seat base to be easily and safely transportable. It was powered either by solar power or by automobile cigarette lighters. It had a

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

device and a 3G connection, which allowed researchers to track its location. It was equipped with a camera, which took photographs periodically to document its journeys.

Travels

The robot's "hitchhiking" was reported by the press in many countries. From July 27, 2014 to August 21, 2014, it hitchhiked across Canada from the Institute for Applied Creativity at

NSCAD University NSCAD University, also known as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design or NSCAD, is a public art university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution that offers bachelor's and master's degrees. The univ ...

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The ...

, to

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. Th ...

. At a

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

powwow, it was given a name translating as "Iron Woman". The robot was so popular that its GPS had to be disabled sometimes to prevent crowds bothering those who took it into their homes. A second hitchBOT machine was made, and in February 2015 it hitchhiked around

for 10 days. For 3 weeks in June 2015, it hitched around the Netherlands. HitchBOT then attempted to cross the United States from Boston to San Francisco starting on July 17, 2015. After 2 weeks, on August 1, 2015 however, a photo was tweeted, showing that the robot had been stripped and decapitated in

. The head was never found. On August 3, 2015 Adam Gabbatt reported on the Guardian website about hitchBOT's destruction. Frauke Zeller, co-creator of hitchBOT, was quoted saying: "We can see on all our data that the tablet and battery and everything shut off at the same time so it must have been when they vandalised the bot." The article also states:

She said Hitchbot’s body had been found by some good samaritans who had located the roving robot through a regularly updated map on its website. "They sent us images and it’s really beyond repair. There’s not a single wire inside and all the things are broken."

Legacy

hitchBOT's ordeal highlighted the issues of

autonomous In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ow ...

technology, the ethics of robot treatment, and the

anthropomorphism Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...

of animate-like devices. The first hitchBOT is now a permanent exhibit at the

Canada Science and Technology Museum The Canada Science and Technology Museum (abbreviated as CSTM; french: Musée des sciences et de la technologie du Canada) is a national museum of science and technology in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The museum has a mandate to preserve and promote ...

. Smith and Zeller recreated their invention as hitchBOT 2.0 in 2019. The robot was sent to Paris, France, where it was touring about and appearing in a play, ''Killing Robots'', written by Linda Blanchet. The tour had to be put on hold indefinitely, however, due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Similar robots

Zeller has also created an art critic robot called kulturBOT. A similar hitch-hiking robot, known as TweenBOT, travelled in the later 2000s. Its purpose was also to study interaction of humans with it.

References

External links

* {{official} 2013 robots Hitchhiking Humanoid robots Robots of Canada Vandalized works of art in Pennsylvania 2015 disestablishments in Pennsylvania