HitchBOT the hitchhiking robot made its way across Canada but it didn’t fair so well in the United States. Barely two weeks after it set out to see the entire country, hitchBOT’s journey has ended. The robot was vandalized by humans in Philadelphia. HitchBOT said on its Twitter account “sometimes bad things happen to good robots.”
True that. The team of Canadian researchers behind hitchBOT have confirmed that the robot’s trip came to an end in Philadelphia after it spent a little over two weeks passing through places like Boston, Salem, Marblehead and New York City. Robots just aren’t safe in our world. Then again, neither are we.
HitchBOT was vandalized overnight in Philadelphia and while the researchers say they know many of the robot’s fans will be disappointed, they also say, “we want them to be assured that this great experiment is not over.”
The goal behind the experiment was to see how humans would interact with hitchBOT. The bot had made it across Germany and Canada without any major incidents but you have to be tough to be a robot in Philadelphia. We don’t know if they plan to repair hitchBOT and put it back on the road, but they will start giving interviews about the experiment tomorrow and we will soon have more info.
Source Ubergizmo