Harold is a 3 axis pick and place robot built from an old record turntable (used for the waist) 3 stepper motors, 1 geared DC motor, 2 DPDT relays with a contact rating suitable for the DC motor, thin sheet metal and wood, assorted toothed belts and hobby type gear wheels, string, rubber bands, etc. It uses a simple PC (286 to 486. There may be timing problems with a Pentium) with a parallel printer port, a mouse (must be able to run under DOS) VGA, 12V power supply (car battery perhaps) and 2 stepper motor driver boards. These boards were described in the January 1994 edition of Silicon Chip, an Australian hobby electronics magazine. The software needed was described in the same magazine of November 1995. The software is basically to control stepper motors, 4 solenoids and to react to 4 sense lines and as such could be used for other purposes (automatically controlled telescopes, etc.) However the software has been written for an educational and hobby purpose and the author would be reluctant to support it in a critical commercial environment. The software has been written using Visual Basic for DOS and all functions and controlls are accessed using a graphical user interface. Costs: The software is available from NewTech Education Resources for $50 Australian but a shareware version can be downloaded free of charge. The kit of parts for a stepper driver is also available from NewTech for $39 Australian. A flat ribbon cable with appropriate connectors to join the driver boards to the PC is available at $16 Australian . Other pricing details including post and packing are included in the software. However both versions of the software contain a readme file that includes details of the electronics required for those who want to roll their own. The other costs associated with the project are mainly to do with what ever reources you have at your disposal ie. mechanical and construction abilities and access to the usual hobby builders supplies. The registered version of the software inludes a 54 page manual that describes the software, construction details for an example robot, and a tutorial. Tony Mercer tonmer@erebus.hie.unimelb.edu.au