Team Members and Role:

Abstract:

Many hobbyists are often disappointed to find that their hobby rocket will not reach the desired heights calculated from the thrust curves advertised by the rocket motor manufacturer. This is often the result of a weak or faulty motor. An ideal model rocket motor performs with a standardized axial thrust curve, and is free of radial thrust components. Some of the current options to test hobby rockets are only able to test motors for the axial thrust instead of radial (or horizontal) forces. To curb this issue, our product serves to measure data produced by the rocket launch in both the horizontal and axial dimensions in a method which is easy to understand and view. This is done through examining the forces with the use of 4 strain gages which can estimate the loads from the rocket during a launch sequence. One of the strain gages measures the axial force from the motor while the other 3 measure the radial forces and are separated by 60 degrees each.