Hybrid Rocket Engine

I developed a small scale rocket engine to test the effect of different additives on the performance of a hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene fuel grain. The entire system was built on a budget of $50 and required many different facets of design. I did all the wiring and circuit design for valve controls and instrumentation and also coded 2 arduinos for those purposes. One arduino controlled the valve timing and flow and the other converted analog signals from instrumentation into digital signals which were transmitted over serial to a laptop running a python code for live continuous data collection. This engine also helped me characterize the hybrid engine combustion mechanism which I studied in depth as an undergraduate researcher. A presentation of my work received first place for the undergraduate engineering poster section at Texas A&M's Student Research Week competition .