This Is A Sad Comment On the State of Affairs Here In the United States...

All the places HitchBOT went before it got here with no problem; it was in the United States for all of two weeks and it has been completely destroyed! What kind of people do we have here in this country???


From NBC News, U.S. News:

HitchBOT, Hitchhiking Robot, Meets Demise in Philadelphia After Two Weeks in U.S.

by ELISHA FIELDSTADT

Philadelphia may be the City of Brotherly Love — but that compassion apparently does not include robots.

The child-sized robot, hitchBOT, had hitchhiked across Canada and parts of Europe, was damaged beyond repair in Philadelphia, according to its creators.

HitchBOT and Family

The robot had set out to travel cross-country. It was immobile on its own, relying on the kindness of strangers. Those who picked it up often passed it to other travelers or left it where others might notice it.

From Tweet by @HitchBOT

It began its American odyssey in Marblehead, 
Massachusetts, on July 17. It made it to the Boston 
area and even took in a Red Sox game.

@HitchBOT with @AirCanada

                                 But after just two weeks in America, hitchBOT was "vandalized" in Philadelphia on Friday night, according to a statement from the team monitoring the robot's travels.

The creators were sent an image of the vandalized robot Saturday but could not track its location because its battery was dead, according to The Associated Press.

"Sometimes bad things happen to good robots," the statement said.

The robot was designed to be a talking travel companion. It could throw out random factoids.

"We want to see what people do with this kind of technology when we leave it up to them," Frauke Zeller, one of the creators and an assistant professor in professional communication at Toronto's Ryerson University, told the AP. "It's an art project in the wild — it invites people to participate."

The robot, wearing yellow wellies, attended a wedding in Germany, had its portrait painted in the Netherlands and was making big plans for its cross-country tour of the U.S., including taking in some jazz in New Orleans and snapping a selfie with the Hollywood sign.

From Tweet by ryan sokolowski @sokmelousy

The creators of the robot did not say whether the machine would try to complete its bucket list in the U.S., but promised that they would keep the project alive.

"We know that many of hitchBOT's fans will be disappointed, but we want them to be assured that this great experiment is not over," they said in a statement.