So I just heard about this a couple days ago, but some Canadian College students were doing an experiment on human kindness by releasing a small robot that had some basic conversation programming and asked people to drive it a little ways, then be dropped off so someone else could pick it up. People who found it took it to sports games, a wedding, and even had a portrait painted of it.
hitchBOT traversed Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands safely. It was set to go through the US next, starting in Massachusetts and hoping to get to San Francisco... Except I just found out today that it only made it to Philadelphia, where it was vandalized and damaged beyond repair. It made a trip of about 300 miles in the US before it was "killed", while it made a trip of around 3000 miles through Canada without any major damage.
*sigh* Of course the US had to be the place where some jerk would destroy a robot involved in a "human kindness" experiment. We're never going to get rid of the hateful stereotypes if we keep proving them right...
But anyway, what do you all think of this? Personally, I think this was a really cute way to do an experiment, and I'm so glad that there are awesome people out there who had a ton of fun with this. Taking it to weddings and sports games? That's awesome and I wish I had been someone to find hitchBOT.
Picture of hitchBOT with some good spirited people:
Picture of hitchBOT after someone decides that people can't have fun:
So I just heard about this a couple days ago, but some Canadian College students were doing an experiment on human kindness by releasing a small robot that had some basic conversation programming and asked people to drive it a little ways, then be dropped off so someone else could pick it up. People who found it took it to sports games, a wedding, and even had a portrait painted of it.
hitchBOT traversed Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands safely. It was set to go through the US next, starting in Massachusetts and hoping to get to San Francisco... Except I just found out today that it only made it to Philadelphia, where it was vandalized and damaged beyond repair. It made a trip of about 300 miles in the US before it was "killed", while it made a trip of around 3000 miles through Canada without any major damage.
*sigh* Of course the US had to be the place where some jerk would destroy a robot involved in a "human kindness" experiment. We're never going to get rid of the hateful stereotypes if we keep proving them right...
But anyway, what do you all think of this? Personally, I think this was a really cute way to do an experiment, and I'm so glad that there are awesome people out there who had a ton of fun with this. Taking it to weddings and sports games? That's awesome and I wish I had been someone to find hitchBOT.
Picture of hitchBOT with some good spirited people:
Picture of hitchBOT after someone decides that people can't have fun:
sources
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/03/hitchhiking-robots-cross-country-journey-comes-to-tragic-end-in-philadelphia/?tid=sm_fb
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hitchhiking-robot-hitchbot-meets-demise-philadelphia-after-about-2-weeks-n402606