HitchBOT nears the end of its cross-Canada journey
Experiment has captured hearts and minds across the country
After bumming its first ride in Nova Scotia to start its cross-Canada journey, hitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot, is nearing its final destination of Victoria.
The talking, tweeting, hitchhiking robot has drawn international attention, even making People magazine.
HitchBOT left Nova Scotia on July 26 for the 6,000-kilometre journey to Victoria. According to its latest tweets, hitchBOT plans to meet some new friends in a Salish First Nations community in Victoria on Wednesday.
It has been quite an adventure for the small robot, which has met hundreds of people, visited a powwow at Wikwemikong, met the world's most famous albino groundhog, Wiarton Willie, grooved to the Harlem Shake in Saskatchewan, and partied all night at a wedding in Golden, B.C.
HitchBOT is dependent on human beings for its survival.
David Harris Smith, an assistant professor at Hamilton's McMaster University, first came up with the idea of creating a collaborative art project centred on a hitchhiking robot. He worked with a team of researchers based in Ontario that was interested in looking at how humans interact with technology.