For historical reasons, most of the volunteers in NAR's Standards and Testing Committee (S&T) belong to CMASS. Now S&T is in need of additional help, if not as a full time member, then someone willing to help solve the occasional problem.
What we do:
- monthly Zoom meeting on the second Tuesday (that vacant spot on your calendar between CMASS meetings);
- monthly motor testing session on a weekend when CMASS is not having a launch (unless Kenn reschedules the launch);
- build and maintain test stands;
- maintain a database (ok, spreadsheet) of all certified motors (includes motors tested by Tripoli (TMT) and the Canadian Association of Rocketry(CAR));
- publish both S&T test results and the combined certified motor list to the NAR website.
How you can help:
- QA: review published test results for errors.
- Test site: we have been using driveways for test sites, which limits the size of motor we can test. Do you know of a field we can use for testing a G, H, or I sized motors?
- Test stand construction or repair:
- do you have metal working equipment or experience constructing testing rigs?
- Testing session. There are many tasks that go into testing motors:
- identify motors for testing and purchase them (you will be reimbursed);
- assemble AeroTech reloadable motors (Cesaroni motors are tested by CAR);
- enter motor data into a spreadsheet (not the combined motor list);
- install motors into the test stand and retrieve them;
- clean reload casings
- Publication:
- learn to use a Java program to extract data from the motor DB and format it for publication;
- update the NAR website with new test results.
- Zoom meeting:
- contribute ideas to the discussion;
- volunteer for tasks that are identified.
- Test data reduction. We use a set of custom Python-3 scripts for data reduction:
- learn to run the thrust data reduction scripts to reduce thrust data and to generate test reports.
- review the Python code for bugs and improvements.
Please contact me if you think you can contribute.
Ed Pattison-Gordon
Secretary, NAR S&T