hitchBOT was a Canadian hitchhiking robot created by professors David Harris Smith of McMaster University and Frauke Zeller of Toronto Metropolitan University in 2013. It gained international attention for successfully hitchhiking across Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. Still in 2015, its attempt to hitchhike across the United States ended when it was stripped, dismembered, and decapitated in Philadelphia.

Smith, who had hitchhiked across Canada three times, and Zeller had "designed the robot to learn about how people interact with technology and ask the question, 'Can robots trust human beings?'" The robot could not walk – it completed its "hitchhiking" journeys by "asking" to be carried by those who picked it up. The robot could engage in basic conversations, discuss facts, and function as a robotic companion during travels in the vehicle of the driver who picked it up. As part of a social experiment, it was equipped with social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

The robot had a cylindrical body composed mainly of a plastic bucket, with two flexible "arms" and two flexible "legs" attached to the torso. The top section of the body was transparent, containing a screen which displayed eyes and a mouth, making the robot approximately humanoid in external appearance. It was small and had a look the team described as "yard-sale chic," to evoke trust and empathy, and had a child's car seat base to be easily and safely transportable. It was powered either by solar power or by automobile cigarette lighters. It had a GPS device and a 3G connection, which allowed researchers to track its location. It was equipped with a camera, which took photographs periodically to document its journeys.

HitchBOT then attempted to cross the United States from Boston to San Francisco, starting July 17, 2015. After two weeks, on August 1, 2015, a photo was tweeted, showing that the robot had been stripped "beyond repair" and decapitated in Philadelphia. The robot was located by some people following its progress on its website. The head was never found. Frauke Zeller, co-creator of hitchBOT, said: "We can see on all our data that the tablet and battery and everything shut off at the same time, so it must have been when they vandalised the bot."