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The MAVIS team had its first busy week with members of the MAVIS consortium from Australian and European teams since the start of COVID in 23 – 27 October. MAVIS busy week is an event, originally schedule to happen annually, in which a large fraction of the MAVIS team gets together in person to work exclusively on the project. This time, 37 collaborators from Italy (INAF), Germany (ESO), and Australia (Astralis-AITC and Astralis-AAO) gathered in Canberra. Close to 60 plenary and splinter sessions were held to work on different aspects of MAVIS, ranging from the most technical subjects to management, product assurance,  and MAIT (Manufacturing, Assembly, Integration and Test). Our field is full of acronyms, but I could not help smiling when I attended a session named "MAVIS LPO: CRE, RFW & RfD".

The busy week took place in the Australian Center on China in the World, a beautiful building located on the Acton ANU campus. We have achieved most of the goals as planned. We have clarified many items and have now a clear path to most remaining instrument trade-offs.

While the busy week is a significant budget investment, it is well worth it for the direct, intensive interactions of science, technical and managerial teams.

Beside hard work, we also planned some less studious activities: a lunch at Tidbinbilla, a hike to Duffield's grave and a visit to AITC on the Monday. This was the first visit to Australia for many of our European colleagues, and they seemed impressed enough! 

The above photo was taken by Brian Taylor at the busy week dinner at the QT hotel.