Hitchhiking robot travels across Canada

This undated handout image provided by the journal Science shows a self-folding crawling robot in three stages. In what may be the birth of cheap, easy-to-make robots, researchers have created complex machines that transform themselves from little more than a sheet of paper and plastic into walking automatons. AP File Photo

TORONTO — Going my way? A talking robot that’s been hitchhiking rides from strangers to travel from Canada’s east to west coast is nearing the end of its journey.

HitchBOT, a robot created by a team of Ontario-based communications researchers studying the relationship between people and technology, has used his garden-gloved thumb to traverse the Great White North. He’s traveled from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Kelowna, British Columbia.

The robot’s co-creator David Smith, who teaches in the department of communication studies at Ontario’s McMaster University, said Thursday that the creators wanted to situate robotics and artificial technologies into unlikely scenarios and push the limits of what robotics is capable of.

Smith said its final destination is Victoria, British Columbia, which it should be reaching soon.