HitchBOT completes 6,000 km cross-Canada trip

Canadas most famous andonly beer cooler-turned-hitchhiking robot has finally completed its 6,000-kilometrejourney across Canada, bumming rides all the way from Halifax reachingVictoria 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."

HitchBOTalso 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, hitchBOTleft NovaScotiaon 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."

hitchBOT was brought to life to explore topics in human-robot-interaction and to test technologies in artificial intelligence and speech recognition and processing, researchers said in a newsrelease.

Usually, we are concerned with whether we can trust robots, said Dr. Frauke Zeller, Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Ryerson University.This project asks: can robots trust human beings?

David Harris Smith, an assistant professor at Hamilton'sMcMasterUniversity, conceived the idea of creating a collaborative art project centred on a hitchhiking robot.

He sayshitchBOTis an experiment that looks at the interaction between people and increasingly ubiquitous technology.

It hasbeen an incredibleadventure for the small robot, whichhas met hundreds of people, visited a powwow atWikwemikong in Ontario, met the world's most famous albino groundhog,WiartonWillie, grooved to theHarlem Shakein Saskatchewanand partied all night at a wedding in Golden, B.C.

"I need to recharge, hitchhiking is tough,"it tweeted.

Perhaps most fascinating is the facthitchBOThas made it all the way to British Columbia, depending on the kindness of strangers to get it safely to its destination.

HitchBOTis equipped with aGPSand3Gwireless connectivity that allows it to post frequent updates of its position on the internet.