Hitch-hiking robot ends 6,000km journey across Canada (BBC, CBC)
A robot sent out to travel across Canada by hitch-hiking has completed its 6,000km (3,728-mile) trip - apparently in one piece.
HitchBOT reached Canada's Pacific coast at Victoria, British Columbia nearly three weeks after leaving Halifax in Nova Scotia, far away on the Atlantic coast, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports. "I'm on a boat," one of HitchBOT's last tweets says. "Well, a ferry to be exact. Victoria, I'm on my way." An arrival event is due to be held on Thursday.
The robot was made by a group of Toronto researchers as an experiment in human-robot interaction and artificial intelligence technologies. Built from an old beer-cooler bucket, foam pool noodles, wellies, solar panels and a computer, it uses GPS technology to send its creators details and pictures of its location. "This project asks: can robots trust human beings?" researcher Frauke Zeller of Ryerson University says.
David Smith of McMaster University tells the Toronto Star newspaper it took only two minutes for HitchBOT to be picked up after being left on a roadside in Halifax on 27 July. Since then, its journey - which included attending a wedding in the province of British Columbia - has gathered more than 30,000 followers on Twitter and over 40,000 likes on Facebook. "We're elated," Smith says. "It's been really great fun and to me it seems like it brought people together in a really interesting way."
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http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs/news_from_elsewhere/
HitchBOT completes 6,000 km cross-Canada trip
Little hitchhiking robot thumbed its way across the country in 3 weeks
CBC News Posted: Aug 17, 2014 1:31 PM PT Last Updated: Aug 17, 2014 2:14 PM PT
Canada‘s most famous — and only — beer cooler-turned-hitchhiking robot has finally completed its 6,000-kilometre journey across Canada, bumming rides all the way from Halifax reaching Victoria late Saturday.
"I'm on a boat," hitchBOT tweeted Saturday night from a B.C. ferry with a photo showing a hitchBOT-eye view of passengers. "I'm on my way."
hitchBOT also tweeted its intention to meet with a B.C. First Nations this week before taking "a quick jaunt to Seattle" and then heading for its final destination the Open Space artists's centre in Victoria Aug 21.
The brainchild of a group of Ontario researchers, hitchBOT left Nova Scotia on July 26.
TIMELINE | A hitchhiking robot goes west
HitchBOT nears the end of its cross-Canada journey
The chatty, social media-savvy robot, about the size of a six-year-old child, was made using pool noodles, an old beer cooler bucket, Wellington boots, rubber gloves, solar panels and a computerized "brain."
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more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/hitchbot-completes-6-000-km-cross-canada-trip-1.2739128
This ... is epic. Just epic.
= new reply since forum marked as read
He was traveling with the hobo circuit in the 1930s, singing folk songs and eating old screws and bolts out of a rusty tin can warmed over a campfire.
