These are pictures of us putting together the test stand. It was made from metal conduit that we picked up from Home Depot.

We cut pieces of the metal conduit to length using a hacksaw, and then pinched either end using a vice. We then used a drill press to cut holes in the pinched ends and connected them using nuts and bolts. The original plan for this design can be found here.

This is Jay using a vice to pinch both ends of a piece of conduit.

This is Tamir drilling a hole through a piece of conduit, at the place where it is pinched. A vice was used to hold it to the table. This was a stupid idea. A drill press works 999 times better.

We attached the piece of extrusion that the motor attaches to to the test stand.

The point of this whole thing is so that we can slide the motor nozzle side up onto the test stand, with the side opposite the motor pushing down on a force plate. Thus, when the motor fires, we can record exactly how much thrust it is outputting.

Also, since the motor is staying on the ground, we don't have to worry about it exploding in the air or becoming an unguided missile. We can also attach thermocouples (read up on the Seebeck effect to understand how they work) and strain gauges to the outside of the case to measure a plethora of things, which I will blog about later.

So in all, this test stand allows us to attach three types of sensors to the rocket as it is burning: force plate, thermocouple, and strain gauge.

This is the completed test stand, with a piece of PVC mounted on it to show how an actual engine would mount on there.	Top view of the completed test stand.
	Closeup of the motor casing.