Left on a road by Halifax airport, it was picked up minutes later.
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Strangers are just robots you haven’t met yet. It’s cars driving robots.
HitchBOT stands about about three feet tall, and looks something like a high-tech trash can with wobbly arms and legs that, upon closer inspection, turn out to be swimming pool noodles.
It wants to visit landmarks in the United States such as Times Square and Mount Rushmore before arriving at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco.
Its head contains motors, a mirror and four LED screens that can light up in a smiley face.
The child-sized machine can’t move around itself so it truly relies on others to get from A to B. In science, we sometimes flip around questions and hope to gain new insight.
Lest you fear hitchBOT, note that the goal of hitchBOT’s journey is human-robot harmony. It’s an interesting reversal on the well-worn trope of dystopian future in which humans are at the whim of robotic overlords, whether malevolently self-aware, or simply malfunctioning without regard for human life.
Project HitchBOT appeared to be started by Ryerson University and McMaster University, and features been faced with a large amount of spirit within its first plan. As it happens, though, hitchBOT is no amateur when it comes to completing cross-country trips.
The robot has made several similar voyages before, having traveled through Canada and Europe. You can also have a conversation with hitchBOT that can be saved as a kind of audio diary if you like.
The Canadian hitchhiking robot is trying to get to San Francisco from Boston with a stop at Millennium Park. In the meantime, though, anyone can follow hitchBOT’s adventures on twitter, as well as mapped on his website.
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So, if you’re anywhere in middle America over the next few weeks, keep an eye out for this smiling little robot on the side of the road. It’s placed along a roadside, one rubber glove thumb in the air, and waits for a kindly motorist to pick it up, carry it into a vehicle and haul it down the road. Anyone who chooses to participate does not have to observe any specific rules; hitchBOT can be set aside or passed off to someone else at any time. hitchBOT creative team member Frauke Zeller called it “an art project in the wild”, adding that the robot’s journey is simply meant to invite participation from people.
