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Armed only with conversation software, the machine lasted just two weeks relying on the kindness of strangers to forward its journey. The US proved too much despite HitchBOT successfully traversing Canada and parts of Europe in 2014.
However, there may be a happy ending yet. Not willing to let robot violence scar its city, hackers and makers in Philadelphia are reaching out to the HitchBOT team to offer new life to the fallen Canadian after hearing about the robot violence.
"We'll say that at this moment, if we get the OK from the creators to repair or replace the needed parts for HitchBOT, we'll be happy to do so," wrote Georgia Guthrie, executive director for a local makerspace called The Hacktory. "If not, we understand... and we may just build ourselves a HitchBot2 to send along on its journey. We feel it's the least we can do to let everyone, especially the Robot community, know that Philly isn't so bad."
Perhaps one day they may become known to all robotkind as "Good Philadelphians."
Previously: The Hitchhiking Robot Experiment Did Not Do So Well
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @12:19AM
I heard about this on the radio and they said there were some things about this that may suggest it to be a hoax. They said that the destruction of the robot was made to look like surveillance footage but, upon further investigating, there were (conveniently) no surveillance cameras in the area that it was filmed. Also Philadelphia may have been conveniently chosen because no one would question it. The motives for the hoax could be for publicity. I'm not saying it was a hoax just that the possibility was being discussed on the radio.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @02:24AM
Nah, niggers aren't that smart.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Berky on Wednesday August 05 2015, @04:10AM
"I'm not saying it was a hoax just that the possibility was being discussed on the radio."
Are you asking for other to validate whether or not these people on the radio were making stuff up or are you just hoping to perpetrate the idea that this was made up.
In the later case, it would help if you put in the effort of providing any indication of what radio stations you were listening to, or even better, which hosts were 'saying' what you claim they were saying.
I don't think that sending a Robot through Canada and Europe just to make one particular state look bad is very credible. If it is a hoax with any intelligence behind it, it will end up making Philadelphia Hackers heroes...
But.. really?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @11:52AM
What I've heard is that the video was a hoax made after the destroying of the robot, which was a real thing.