What an awesome idea! A robot who hitchhikes through canada, by itself. 6125 km from halifax to victoria. An art project which will show if robots can trust humans and by the way: for humans it´s forbitten to hitchhike in canada! The idea was born by frauke zeller und david harris smith, they are the „parents“ of hitchBOT. It sits beside the road and wafes his swim-noodle-arms, the swim noodle legs stick in rubber boots, the head is a cheese dome with winking digital eyes. From time to time it talks, takes automatically pictures of its journey, is connected with faebook and twitter and sends its gps position. Its parents look forward to many adventures und that it will be charged regularily on cigarette lighters or it´s allowed to stay overnight with its host family if the weather gets too nasty to hitch.
I had heared about this project weeks ago in germany but the probability to meet this guy wasn´t very big. A girl friend of mine sent us a message to halifax that hichBot will be launched on the 27.th of july, the same day and the same place where we started our trip. David quickly replied my mail and so hitchBOT got a special ride in our truck. During load and unload it at the pier of halifax crowds of people gathered together and everbody had heard about hitchBOT in the press and they all were very excited. Great, this project was present wordwide in the media even before it was on it´s way.
We wish hitchBot a save hike and we will report its adventures. © n.g.
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