Creators of destroyed San Francisco-bound hitchhiking robot mull rebuild

The robot, on its way to San Francisco, met its demise over the weekend.|

TORONTO — The Canadian talking and tweeting hitchhiking robot that met its untimely end in the United States over the weekend might be given another chance at life.

HitchBOT's co-creators Frauke Zeller and David Smith said Monday that they've been overwhelmed with support and offers to revive the robot since it was vandalized beyond repair on the streets of Philadelphia on Saturday and they are considering rebuilding it.

The robot was on a hitchhiking, social experiment adventure in the U.S. after trekking across Canada and parts of Europe last year. Strangers helped hitchBOT travel from place to place while checking items off its bucket list.

The robot was designed to traverse continents on the kindness of strangers and could toss out factoids and carry on limited conversation.

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