The Hitchbot has nearly reached its final destination through the sheer kindness of strangers.
In Canada, technology news is starting to buzz ahead of the arrival of the Hitchbot hitchhiking robot that has made its way across the country and is now nearing the end of its trek from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Victoria, British Columbia.
The creators have stated that the last reports from its mobile devices showed it passed Kelowna B.C.
At that time, the technology news showed that the Hitchbot was on its way to the Open Space art center located on Vancouver Island. What the creators of the hitchhiking robot are finding truly striking is that is bundle of inexpensive parts and a few mobile devices has managed to take part in a broad range of rather meaningful and significant events throughout its journey across the country. They knew that there was no way to predict what would happen, but the results still managed to exceed their expectations.
They couldn’t have guessed that the technology news reports from Hitchbot would be so diverse.
According to co-creator of the robot, David Smith, who teaches at the McMaster University department of communication studies, “We were expecting the unexpected,” adding that “there’s no way that we could have expected the number of really memorable and significant events that Hitchbot participated in.”
The robot’s journey was more than 3,700 miles long. It started on July 26, when the rain-boot wearing robot with pool noodle arms took off on a tremendous adventure. Since then, it has gone camping at the Kouchibouguac National Park in New Brunswick, and it went to Manitoulin Island in Ontario to attend a powwow among the First Nations. It did the Harlem Shake on its way through the Prairie provinces, and when it reached Golden, British Columbia, it attended a wedding.
Smith added to his technology news statement in saying that the experience was “really, really exciting,” and that “We’ve been actually really impressed and in some cases deeply moved by people’s responses.” All of the Hitchbot adventures have been tracked on social media where there are now tens of thousands of people following on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
