Ten years ago, a hitchhiking robot thumbed its way through the Sault

On this day 10 years ago the Sault was visited by a very special hitchhiking robot, halfway toward his goal of safely crossing the country.

HitchBOT was built as a joint project by professors from Ryerson and McMaster universities as a unique social experiment to determine if robots can rely on humans to help them on a cross-Canada adventure.

The robot's body was built into a plastic bucket and its brain was a small computer. It was built to have simple conversations with those who picked it up.

Its legs were made from reinforced pool noodles and the glove that served as its right hand was glued into the classic hitchhiker “thumbs up” position.

On Aug. 5, 2014, hitchBOT arrived at the Trading Post on Great Northern Road, dropped off by Henry Lewis, who had picked up the robot from a Pow-Wow on Manitoulin Island.

Lewis told SooToday at the time that hitchBOT was given an Anishinaabe name at the Pow-Wow — Biiaabeqwe, which he said translates to “iron woman.”

HitchBOT went on a sight-seeing tour of the Sault before being dropped off at the halfway point of the Trans-Canada Highway at Chippewa Falls.

At Harmony Beach, a Belgian couple named Kim Van Aerde and Seb Leeson, who were driving their van west across Canada, volunteered to take hitchBOT with them for the next leg of its journey. Like hitchBOT, the couple started their journey in Halifax and were planning to travel to Victoria.

“That was the first time we saw hitchBOT but we knew about him, her or it because we read about it,” Leeson said at the time.

HitchBOT's journey began July 27, 2014 in Halifax, Nova Scotia and it arrived in Victoria, B.C. on Aug. 21, 2014.

The hitchBOT that successfully crossed Canada is on permanent display at Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation.

Another hitchBOT robot was made to tour across the United States of America from Boston to San Francisco starting on July 17, 2015, but its trip was brutally cut short on Aug. 1, 2015 in Philadelphia when that robot was found smashed to pieces.