The World Mourns hitchBOT the Hitchhiking Robot
"Sometimes bad things happen to good robots," hitchBOT team wrote.
— -- The creators of hitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot that was decapitated in Philadelphia over the weekend are choosing to mourn the death of the friendly machine by focusing on what it had achieved during its lifetime.
"We have no interest in pressing charges or finding the people who vandalized hitchBOT; we wish to remember the good times, and we encourage hitchBOT’s friends and fans to do the same," the Canadian team behind the robot wrote on its website.
The child-sized robot started its U.S. journey in Marblehead, Massachusetts with the goal of getting to San Francisco. Many fans on Twitter shared their disappointment and wondered who would want to hurt such a friendly robot.
During its American road trip, hitchBOT took in a Boston Red Sox game, briefly went to sea and enjoyed the sights in Boston before it was "murdered" in the City of Brotherly Love, just 330 miles into its American road trip.
The robot had been able to snap photos and carry on limited conversations. Created as a social experiment by Canadian researchers, hitchBOT had previously hitchhiked across Canada and parts of Europe with its owners tracking it via GPS.