Most of us have probably seen enough horror movies to be a little fearful of hitchhiking our way across the entirety of America. It’s a slightly different proposition if you’re a robot of course, and the HitchBOT that has already managed to cross both Canada and Europe is now taking on the U.S.

Friday saw the journey begin in Salem, Massachusetts with the eventual plan of ending in San Franciso, California. HitchBOT will rely entirely on the kindness of strangers to pass it from one willing person to another, a mission that requires more than a little faith in the decency of humankind. TIME reports:

“We want to see what people do with this kind of technology when we leave it up to them,” according to Frauke Zeller, one of the creators…“It’s an art project in the wild — it invites people to participate.”

“It has a really low-tech look to it, something we dubbed the ‘yard-sale aesthetic,’” said David Harris Smith, the second creator. “The head is actually an acrylic cake-saver.”

The creators are able to track the location of HitchBOT using the GPS tracker on board, with a photo taken every 20 minutes and a selection uploaded to its Twitter account.

Can you imagine a similar thing here at home? First photo the road, second photo scrap metal yard.

[source:time]