On July 27, a brave robot named hitchBOT bid goodbye to its creators on the shoulder of a highway in Halifax, Nova Scotia. With limbs made from pool noodles, a beer-cooler body, and legs clad in Wellington rain boots, this adorable hodgepodge of a robot was ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. It raised its best hitchhiker’s thumb, and waited to be picked up by its first benefactor in its 6,000-kilometer road trip across Canada.

“We’re elated,” hitchBOT’s co-creator David Smith told the Toronto Star. “It’s been really great fun and to me it seems like it [has] brought people together in a really interesting way.”

[Source: Motherboard]