It as been a couple of days since unavailability of parts on HobbyKing halted progress on our drone. Though the possibility of obtaining the items we need on Taobao was always lurking in the corner, we were reluctant to do due to different people telling us different things regarding claiming from NTU. (Tony said that when he attempted to do so a while back his claim was rejected, whereas Dr Ho vaguely remembered that groups in previous years had successfully claimed for purchases on Taobao)

We also made our trailblazer order consisting of small, inexpensive items from Taobao to try our luck claiming. Should that go through, the million dollar question of whether or not we can claim from Taobao would be solved. Meanwhile, we also emailed Ms J to ask about claiming of items on non-English websites.

Big Hurrah!

Around a day after sending the email, two events happened in quick succession: our groupmate was summoned to a meeting regarding discrepancies in deducted amount between his bank statement and the receipt issued by Taobao. This was enough evidence to show show that contrary to what Tony said, we indeed could place our orders off Taobao!

Not long after, Ms J also replied to our email query:

Taobao Approved!

Now comes the mad scramble to get our parts ordered and delivered as soon as possible!