The robot, made out of a beer bucket and pool noodles, relies on the kindness of strangers to pick it up and has made several successful trips overseas. Not long after, a group of German tourists picked it up and strapped it into their SUV with plans to take it to Boston or New York. The robot will also provide its own updates along the way and post them to the hitchBOT website. People can carry around the child-sized robot, pass it off to others they meet, or leave it seated on its kickstand with its thumb raised. They just leave it seated on its kickstand with its thumb raised.
The creators hope that drivers will cost the robot when it runs low and gained’t depart hitchBOT alongside busy roads. Otherwise, there are no rules.
A joint project between researchers at McMaster University and Ryerson University, hitchBOT was initially designed as a kind of sociology experiment, to see whether a robot could trust humans enough to hitchhike solo across the country. 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.
What’s on hitchBOT’s bucket list?
“The head is actually an acrylic cake-saver.” It carries only a Global Positioning System, camera, and of course its digital brain, which can allow hitchBOT to communicate and hold conversations with its traveling companions.
The robot has Global Positioning System installed within it and snaps a photo of its surroundings every 20 minutes to document its travels.
“We want to be very careful to avoid surveillance technologies with this; that’s not what we’re trying to do here”, Smith said. But hitchBOT’s creators won’t use any photos of you on social media without your permission. HitchBot is all about whether robots can trust humans, especially random people encountered on the road. It once spent a week with a heavy metal band.
It took hitchBOT less than four weeks to travel more than 10,000 kilometres across Canada last summer, but that was without a bucket list of destinations and only one objective - get from Halifax to Victoria.
“We want to create something that has a bit of narrative to it, a sense of adventure”, Smith said.
I’m not sure hitchBOT understands that the American Dream typically has social and economic connotations beyond merely going on a road trip, but we can forgive him this time.
