Rocket motor test stand/launch pad

Overview

For a 4 week capstone project in AP Chemistry, my group and I had to create and test various "home-made" solid rocket propellants. To do this, we needed a test stand to prototype rocket motors, and measure their thrust. After a good propellant/motor design was found, we also wanted to use it to launch a model rocket. Because of a cost constraint, the test stand was completely made out of scrap aluminum. It used a load cell pushed by a "thrust sled" to measure the motor's output thrust. A piece of sheet metal was added under the sled to create a protected housing for the ignition power source. Thrust was measured by an Arduino mega connected to a laptop via USB which logged thrust at a given timestamp. These measurements could then be plotted and compared. A launch rod was connected to a square section on the front of the stand and was used as a launch pad for the in-flight test. After the project, the test stand was repurposed to ground test thrust vector control hardware.