HitchBOT was an innovative social robot designed to hitchhike across countries, aiming to study human-robot interaction. Created by Canadian researchers in 2014, the robot featured a friendly, humanoid design, complete with a screen for a face, rubber boots, and a bucket-shaped body, and it was powered with solar panels covering the beer cooler bucket that made up its torso. It could also be recharged from a car cigarette lighter or a regular outlet.

The chatty, social media-savvy robot, about the size of a six-year-old child, had a computerized "brain." It relied entirely on the kindness of strangers for rides and navigation. Drivers who stopped along the way had to lift hitchBOT into their vehicles and physically buckle it in. If…