While leaving a robot unattended at the side of the road may seem foolhardy to some, Harris and Zeller originally conceived of the project specifically as a means of testing whether or not robots could trust humans.
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The website continues that it will not seek out the party who destroyed hitchBOT.
The amiable robot, which safely hitchhiked across Germany and Canada, lasted only two weeks in the U.S.
Conceived in Ontario from the minds of Dr. David Smith of McMaster University and Dr. Frauke Zeller of Ryerson University, Hitchbot started its trek like any human hitchhiker would-but there was never a guarantee of its survival; people could ignore or destroy it. “Whenever we released it into the wild, we knew there was the possibility that HitchBOT could be damaged or stolen…”
A miniature hitchhiking robot took to the streets of Old City, and there it died all too young. Other items on its American bucket list included a photo of Mount Rushmore and a jazz outing in New Orleans.
On Monday, Wellens said he had surveillance video of hitchBOT’s demise, but his claim could not be confirmed.
The video may have been made by Wellens himself as prank, Gizmodo suggested.
Over the weekend, Mr. Bassmaster challenged accusations on social media that he and Mr. Wellens were the ones who destoyed hitchBOT.
The video allegedly shows a man in a Philadelphia Eagles jersey stomping on the robot.
A man in a Randall Cunningham jersey opted not to pick up hitchBOT for the next leg of his trip.
HitchBOT, that adorable little hitchhiker created by Canadian roboticists and then sent traipsing down the Eastern Seaboard before being savagely attacked August. 1 in the City of Brotherly Love and, well, decapitated, may soon be vindicated.
“Bunch of crumbs”, Bassmaster-as-Teste told reporters. Its creators say it was “vandalized overnight in Philadelphia“; a photo on Twitter showed the robot with its head and arms ripped off.
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ZELLER: When we are around with hitchBOT, we see just how people smile when they see it, that it brings a smile on people’s face. As of Tuesday morning, a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to fix hitchBOT had raised more than $4,000. “For now we will focus on the question “what can be learned from this?” and explore future adventures for robots and humans”. “And, you know, we would say at this point, mostly”.
