And that's a wrap! Thanks for reading this thread, and stay tuned for more build updates (and hopefully a launch!)

The brains of the pad (and the rocket) is my Athena flight computer.

It's conformal coated so *should* fair well against the environment, but I'm working on an enclosure anyway.

Athena can receive commands via Bluetooth to trigger launches/aborts.

Water and power is supplied to the pad by this electrical box I stole from an old school project.

Yes it looks ugly, but it conveniently had the correct number/sizes of holes 🤷

The water deluge system features 10 nozzles angled downwards to spray water onto the blast plate (not present).

The system is enabled at T-4 and runs for 5 seconds, consuming about half a bottle of water. I'm hoping it will produce a nice amount of steam at liftoff.

The clamp is initially held in place by a supporting bar, which is knocked out of the way by a servo motor and pulled into the retracted position by a rubber band.

Pretty much as simple and reliable as can be.

The hold down clamps themselves are inspired by several other people's designs --

The pad itself consists of two parts: a hexagonal base and a hold down system. This allows the base to be compatible with multiple rocket diameters and clamp designs.

The base features interior channels for servo cables to be routed through.

-- I don't currently have access to a workshop, and I want to finish the build phase of this project before uni. The exhaust is still directed at a metal plate and water should help reduce hot sparks.

First, two points:

1. The water deluge and hold down clamps are mostly cosmetic and serve little function, but they were fun to build and look sick on camera ;)

2. I don't recommend 3D printing an entire pad! Printable plastics and rocket exhausts don't get along. I only did so because-

Some key features:
- Onboard GPS chip
- Bluetooth Radio
- USB-C
- Dedicated telemetry radio ports
- 4 Pyro channels
- Servo voltage regulation
- Flash memory for in-flight datalogging, and an SD slot for offloading that data
- High-precision IMU and Barometer

generating soulless slop to say "we are not sheep" is so fucking sad

@torybruno.bsky.social gotta rep the vulcan swag

we need an asteroid analog horror