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HitchBOT the hitchhiking robot is about to make its way across Canada

HitchBOT is hoping that kind drivers will offer him rides across Canada.

Late next month, a robot named hitchBOT will embark on a cross-Canada journey — and it needs kind Canadians to help it along.

So if you see a hitchhiking robot on the side of the road this summer, offer it a ride.

"I am hoping to make new friends, have interesting conversations, and see new places along the way. As you may have guessed robots cannot get driver’s licences yet, so I’ll be hitchhiking my entire way. I have been planning my trip with the help of my big family of researchers in Toronto. I will be making my way from the east coast to the west coast starting in July," the robot "wrote" on its official site.

HitchBOT will start his adventure on the side of the road near NSCAD University in Halifax. Its goal: to reach Open Space, an artist-run centre in Victoria, B.C.

Apart from its hitchhiking arm — a mock-up image reveals a physical form that will look "like somebody has cobbled together odds and ends to make the robot, such as pool noodles, bucket, cake saver, garden gloves, Wellies, and so forth," its creators described — the rain-boot-clad robot can't move on its own. It will, however, come equipped with a microphone and camera that will allow it to detect motion and speech, and even answer questions and engage in conversation.

The "outgoing and charismatic robot" will ask its new friends to plug it into their cars' cigarette lighters to charge its battery.

The hitchhiking robot is a collaborative art project and social experiment conceived by Ryerson professor Frauke Zeller and McMaster professor David Harris Smith, who told CTV News that he's "cautiously optimistic" their robot will make it to the other side of the country.

"This is both an artwork and social robotics experiment," Zeller and Harris told The Atlantic in an email. "Usually, we are concerned whether we can trust robots, e.g. as helpers in our homes. But this project takes it the other way around and asks: can robots trust human beings?"

"I think from the media and public response so far, there's a lot of good will in this project," Smith told CTV News Channel. "But should hitchBOT go missing, we do have siblings in place to step in."

HitchBOT hits the road on July 27.

Follow hitchBOT's journey on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and on the robot's official site, www.hitchbot.me.