https://twitter.com/hitchBOT/status/627593886186254336

The 2015 HitchBOT saga is over—or, at least, the original hitchhiking robot's journey has formally concluded for now. The anthropomorphized robot equipped with cameras, microphones, speakers, and external battery chargers had set out to criss-cross the United States in July—and conduct a sort of social experiment—by asking humans to ferry it along, only to be stopped short by vandals in Philadelphia on Saturday.

Not content to have its "brotherly love" reputation tarnished, some robo-minded citizens at Philadelphia hacker/maker space The Hacktory responded by offering to rebuild or repair HitchBOT and send the yellow-gloved wonder on its way. On Wednesday, the bot's co-creators at Toronto's Ryerson University responded with a polite but firm declination.

"We appreciate your support," HitchBOT's team told The Hacktory in an e-mail exchange shared with Ars Technica. "Unfortunately, according to the images we have received, we believe that HitchBOT is damaged beyond repair. As such, one would be left with no starting point from which to build a new bot. We have therefore arranged for the remaining parts [discovered by HitchBOT fans] to be shipped back to us."

Following that exchange, Ryerson University spokesperson Johanna VanderMaas issued a press release confirming that HitchBOT's journey was conclusively over and that alleged security-cam footage of its demise turned out to be fraudulent. VanderMaas teased tentative plans for HitchBOT to be rebuilt and go on one of two journeys in 2016: either a recreation of the original, remaining American path from Philadelphia to San Francisco or a "school-to-school" path that would ask American students to "devise robot adventures" at its every stop. The press release also remarked on the social-experiment nature of HitchBOT's journey, noting that its destruction was met by an "outpouring" of fans asking to send financial and technical support.

"Even though it did end badly for HitchBOT, we’ve learned a lot about human empathy and trust," McMaster University assistant professor Dr. David Harris Smith said in the statement. "Everything we’ve learned will be borne out in the resulting research and used in future planning for HitchBOT’s adventures.”

That hasn't stopped The Hacktory from moving forward with an alternate plan (with the official blessing of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter no less). "This is our time to show the world how great Philly is, how much talent we have here, and break this curse of the bad reputation!" the group wrote in an announcement page for its HitchBOT mini-hackathon happening Thursday, August 6. Rather than build a replica HitchBOT, the event will have a looser objective of "creative and fun responses to this series of events," and the announcement page includes requests for specific skills and parts. While that list reads like the kind of stuff you'd put in a HitchBOT replacement, we'll just have to wait and see what Philly's craziest hackers come up with by the end of Thursday.