In the last couple of weekends the team achieved a huge amount. Sarah seemed to be constantly spray painting all the new armour sections and weapon bulkeads with primer, paint and laquer (that'll protect against Tombstone won't it?), meanwhile Tom was fitting out the chassis with all the internal components, gathering together all the extra spare parts they needed to take, and completing all the paperwork and safety documents associated with shipping a total of 350kg of fighting robot, motors, spares, tools and LiPo batteries overseas.
All the team members work full time so were really short of time to work on Monsoon, but during this period Tim was living a pretty insane existence, flying backwards and forwards to China every few weeks to take part in Clash Bots with Jason Marston and AU Thumper. Whenever he could he came up to Turvey to work on Monsoon's wiring and electrical systems.
Tim's wiring had to be absolutely rock solid - there are massive forces involved in robot combat so it's hugely important to get that right, and if anyone can do it, Tim can!
The crate was due to be picked up on 14th March, and amazingly by the evening of 13th Monsoon was ready to be packed away. Getting everything in the crate was a bit of a 3d jigsaw puzzle - how do you get one Monsoon, a spare set of armour, spare weapon bulkhead, weapon motor and wheels, plus several tool boxes and absolutely everything else you can think of into a crate measuring less than one cubic metre? Very carefully. Oh, and don't forget all those Monsoon stickers that had to be packed as well!
At the last minute the team made the (probably sensible) decision to paint over "The Pain" on the top of crate with a big raincloud, just in case US customs got a bit suspicious as to what was actually inside...
