engineering

HitchBOT

HitchBOT is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand HitchBOT rather than just read about it. In short: hitchBOT was a Canadian hitchhiking robot created by professors David Harris Smith of McMaster University and Frauke Zeller of Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly known as Ryerson University) in 2013. It gained international attention for successfully hitchhiking across Canada, Germany and the Netherlands.

Key takeaways

HitchBOT belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect HitchBOT to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of HitchBOT from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

hitchBOT was a Canadian hitchhiking robot created by professors David Harris Smith of McMaster University and Frauke Zeller of Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly known as Ryerson University) in 2013. It gained international attention for successfully hitchhiking across Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. In 2015, its attempt to hitchhike across the United States ended when it was stripped, dismembered, and decapitated in Philadelphia.

Description

Smith, who had hitchhiked across Canada three times, and Zeller had "designed the robot to learn about how people interact with technology and ask the question, 'Can robots trust human beings?'" The robot could not walk – it completed its "hitchhiking" journeys by "asking" to be carried by those who picked it up. The robot could engage in basic conversations, discuss facts, and function as a robotic companion during travels in the vehicle of the driver who picked it up. As part of a social experiment, it was equipped with social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The robot had a cylindrical body composed mainly of a plastic bucket, with two flexible "arms" and two flexible "legs" attached to the torso. The top section of the body was transparent, containing a screen which displayed eyes and a mouth, making the robot approximately humanoid in external appearance. It was small and had a look the team described as "yard-sale chic," to evoke trust and empathy, and had a child's car seat base to be easily and safely transportable. It was powered either by solar power or by automobile cigarette lighters. It had a GPS device and a 3G connection, which allowed researchers to track its location. It was equipped with a camera, which took photographs periodically to document its journeys.

Travels The press reported the robot's "hitchhiking" in many countries. From July 27, 2014, to August 21, 2014, it hitchhiked across Canada from the Institute for Applied Creativity at NSCAD University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Victoria, British Columbia. The robot spent a weekend with the Wiikwemkoong First Nation, it was given the name "biiaabkookwe" translating as "Iron Woman" from the Anishinaabe. The robot was so popular that its GPS had to be disabled sometimes to prevent crowds from bothering those who took it into their homes. A second hitchBOT machine was made, and in February 2015, it hitchhiked around Germany for ten days. For three weeks in June 2015, it hitched around the Netherlands. HitchBOT then attempted to cross the United States from Boston to San Francisco, starting July 17, 2015. After two weeks, on August 1, 2015, a photo was tweeted, showing that the robot had been stripped "beyond repair" and decapitated in Philadelphia. It was located by some people following its progress on its website. The head was never found. Frauke Zeller, co-creator of hitchBOT, said: "We can see on all our data that the tablet and battery and everything shut off at the same time, so it must have been when they vandalised the bot."

Legacy HitchBOT's story highlighted the issues of autonomous technology, the ethics of robot treatment, and the anthropomorphism of animate-like devices. The first hitchBOT became a permanent Canada Science and Technology Museum exhibit. The second damaged robot was rebuilt and is currently housed at the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum in Paderborn, Germany. Smith and Zeller recreated their invention as hitchBOT 2.0 in 2019. The robot was sent to Paris, France, where it was touring about and appearing in a play, Killing Robots, by Linda Blanchet. That tour was put on hold indefinitely due to COVID-19.

Similar robots A similar hitch-hiking robot, TweenBOT, travelled in the late 2000s. Its purpose was also to study the interaction of humans with it. Zeller has also created an art critic robot called kulturBOT.

References

External links

Official website The Death and Lives of hitchBOT: The Design and Implementation of a Hitchhiking Robot David Harris Smith & Frauke Zeller (2017)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with HitchBOT

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what HitchBOT claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to HitchBOT before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about HitchBOT ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of HitchBOT

In research: HitchBOT appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses HitchBOT in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: HitchBOT is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2013 robots, 2015 disestablishments in Pennsylvania, Hitchhiking, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for HitchBOT outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study HitchBOT in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what HitchBOT means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain HitchBOT out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is HitchBOT in simple terms?

Why does HitchBOT matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study HitchBOT?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on HitchBOT.