An artificial nose has been developed by Julian Gardner of UWarwick (Coventry) for quality control in beer, coffee, perfume, and other products. The sensor includes a dozen polymers that react to specific chemicals. [Otis Port, BW, 4/19/93, p. 110.]

The 8th Annual SFRSA Robot Games at San Francisco's Exploratorium this 9/12 will feature robotic rope climbing, maze running, and potato peeling. Potato peeling is a testbed activity for robotic arms and perhaps vision systems. [Brad Smallridge (bsmall@iat.holonet.net), (415) 550-0588, comp.robotics. Bill Park, 6/7/93.]

"Intentions in Time," a report on temporal reasoning about goal-directed actions by fallible agents, is available from Robert P. Goldman and R. Raymond Lang. It's based on Allen's temporal logic and Bratman's characterization of intention, with insights from Cohen and Levesque's formalization, and is particularly good for reasoning about deadlines. Get file tutr-93-101.ps.Z with binary FTP from pub/tech on rex.cs.tulane.edu. [rpg@cs.tulane.edu, NL-KR, 3/3.]

Toby Tyrrell's dissertation analyzes spreading activation and other methods for selecting actions. A simulator for SunView or OpenWindows models 15 subproblems (getting food, reproducing, etc.) and 35 low-level actions. Both can be copied (in binary mode) from pub/lrtt on ftp.ed.ac.uk. [toby@castle.ed.ac.uk, comp.robotics, 3/9/93.]

Brian Campanotti (cces@ecf.toronto.edu) reports that the Fuzzy Inference Development Environment (FIDE) from Aptronix/Motorola is very easy to use. You can edit and evaluate your membership functions with a mouse, then generate very compact 6805 or 6811 code. The tutorial is very detailed. Unfortunately, the system costs about CDN$2,000. [comp.robotics. Bill Park, 4/16/93.]

Chuck McManis has been compiling short reviews of hardware- level robotics articles under the name "Periodical Updates." His June summary covers Computer Applications Journal (LEDs, ACCESS.bus, modems, etc.; $21.95/year), Electronics Now ("Experimenter" controller board, analog ICs for sensor conditioning; $19.97/year), ComputerCraft ($18.97/year), and Electronic Design ($95 or free). [cmcmanis@eng.sun.com, comp.ai. Bill Park, 6/7/93.]

Joe Jones and Anita Flynn have completed a how-to book, "Mobile Robots: Inspiration to Implementation." The tutorial starts with LEGO and Radio Shack components, then covers microprocessor programming, sensor systems, motor control, etc. Suppliers are listed in an appendix. Much of the subsumption technology is from the MIT Mobot Lab. A Rug Warrior kit was planned, but only the $12 circuit board is currently offered. The book is $39.95 from AK Peters, Ltd. (Wellesley, MA), kpeters@math.harvard.edu, (617) 235-2210, (617) 235-2404 Fax. Instructors can get a special deal. Over 4000 (80% of the first printing) have already been sold, mostly to two robotics clubs. [jlj@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu, comp.robotics. Bill Park, 5/23/93 and 6/7/93.]

Lego Logo kits for building computer-controlled toys are available from Lego Dacta, (800) 527-8339. Their LogoWriter Robotics kit comes with a controller card for an Apple II. Together with software and the "Control 0" Lego set it's about $520. Interfaces are also available for Apple GS, Mac, and MS-DOS computers. [Lynn Robinson (led11@ccc.amdahl.com), misc.kids.computer, 5/19.]

Want to know the status of the ELab coke machine at CMU? Try "finger bargraph@coke.elab.cs.cmu.edu". (Buttons C, D, and S are for Coke, Diet Coke, and Sprite.) You also get a status picture for the M&M machine. [Ergin Guney (eg23@andrew.cmu.edu), alt.best.of.internet, 3/25.] (Is this robotics?)

Spider, Mantra, Piper-Mouse, Line Tracker, S-Cargo, Medusa, and Navius are robot kits for under $100. Piper Mouse obeys a whistle; Line Tracker will follow a dark line. A catalog is available from OWI, (310) 638-4732, (310) 638-8347 Fax. [Dr. Gizmo, Forbes FYI, 11/23, p. 25.]

If you'd like to program a simple "robot," FTP the Mac robowar-23.hqx from info-mac/game on sumex-aim.stanford.edu. (StuffIt can de-binhex the file.) [Glenn Heinle (heinle @cmf.nrl.navy.mil), comp.robotics, 6/23/93.] There's a related Robosport game for Windows and for the Mac. It includes various terrain types and several game variations. (I've heard it's fun but rather slow.) [Brian Daniels (bdaniels@rock.concert.net).] MUSE's RobotWars for the PC can be FTP'd from /wuarchive/mirrors/msdos/c on knot.queensu.ca. Later versions for the Amiga also exist. P-robots (in pseudo-Pascal) are not nearly as good. C-robots (in pseudo-C) offer color graphics, but the documentation is weak and code examples are difficult to understand. The author put in an artificial restriction on the combined strength and complexity of C-robots -- possibly a good idea, but the limit is too low. [Jim (jtf9s@poe.acc.virginia.edu).]