The Traveller's Magazine
We couldn’t help but shed a virtual tear upon reading this story about a cheerful hitchhiking robot that was vandalised while travelling across the USA. Here’s what happened…
Hitchhiking can be a really fun way to travel the world. If you’re thinking about it, take a look at our article, 10 tips on how to hitchhike safely and effectively. Unfortunately one robot, aptly named HitchBOT, had a bad experience in the USA.
This happy-go-lucky hitchhiking robot successfully travelled cross-country in Canada, the Netherlands as well as Germany, meeting many friendly along the way. It intended to also travel across the USA but ran into some trouble in Philadelphia after only 300 miles of its journey.
The team in charge of its journey said in a statement,
“Unfortunately, hitchBOT was vandalised overnight in Philadelphia; sometimes bad things happen to good robots.”
The robot was a social experiment intended to test human psychology when confronted with a technological novelty. It could also engage with people. Unfortunately the project has ended but the researchers have gathered plenty of information about how humans interact with technology.
It’s probably very safe to hitchhike across the USA, but in this case, hitchBOT probably should have just booked a flight to San Francisco instead…
