Connor Mackey and Rett Stockman are holding their NASA award-winning rocket. Photo by Angela Foster.
College is a time to shoot for the stars. Graduate students Rett Stockman and Connor Mackey did exactly that.
As part of a senior design course in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga College of Engineering and Computer Science, Stockman and Mackey were on a team that designed and built rockets to compete nationally.
The duo was part of a team—the Rocket Mocs—that won a NASA award.
Since graduating with their undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering in 2024, Stockman and Mackey have been pursuing their Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering and working as graduate assistants.
Students can join the club as underclassmen to learn techniques, build different rockets and practice before ultimately competing in senior design.
“Rett and Connor represent probably the best possible outcomes associated with what we want to achieve with our students,” said UC Foundation Associate Professor and Rocket Mocs faculty lead Trevor Elliott. “Their growth coming into the program, being involved with something like Rocket Mocs … then doing it for senior design and then staying involved afterward.”
====================================================
Click here for more UTC Commencement 2026 stories
====================================================
Before they were building rockets for NASA competitions, they described themselves as curious kids who knew they wanted to learn how to construct things.
“It was Legos as a kid, then it was loving Iron Man,” Mackey said. “The one thing that really got me into engineering was playing with an RC car with my friend … I had crashed the car into a gutter and snapped an axle. I just bought it, too.
“There’s this part that would take five weeks to get here. He was already in this design program class in high school and was like, ‘Give it to me. I’ll see if I can design it and then 3D print it.’ He did and it was fixed within a week.”
Stockman said he had a similar curiosity with Legos, then eventually moved to fixing refrigerators, car parts and computers.
“I like being able to understand how the thing is working,” he explained, “not just using something and taking it apart, putting it back together. I guess it’s always been a fascination and I enjoy the process of learning.”
Mackey and Stockman both appreciated that the campus encouraged curiosity—specifically, the 3D printers in the UTC Library, the different lab spaces, and faculty who fostered learning.
“With UTC’s size, it’s big enough to be in major clubs or competitions, but it’s not too big where you’re part of a 60-person team with only this tiny little part,” Mackey said. “If you did something with a team, you’re one of 10 and really impactful.”
Mackey joined the Rocket Mocs as a junior.
“When we were able to join a team that was literally a NASA-branded competition, it revitalized everything,” he said.
They competed in the 2024 Student Launch Challenge, part of the University Student Launch Initiative, and received the 3D Printing Award for the best consideration, design and implementation.
“We were producing work at the same level or higher level than a lot of big institutes that have 80-person teams,” Stockman said. “They show up with more people than we have in some of my entire classes. To see our work win the best design and the best use of 3D printing was really, really cool.”
With the Rocket Mocs, Stockman and Mackey competed against universities from across the country.
Elliott emphasized the importance of the rocket and the team to the club.
“The physical tangibles I can hand to these other students and say, ‘This is the rocket that broke this record. This is the one that got this award.’ It turns on something in them to realize they came from UTC,” Elliott said. “They were in my position and broke a world record. They won first place from this company that does this for a living and thinks you’re the best.
“It really does instill pride.”
The pair has been conducting research with Elliott as part of the program.
“Getting to know him and his enthusiasm for quite literally everything engineering and rockets is contagious,” Stockman said. “Going through research, you start to know him better, and he is the teacher who wants the best for his students, which is just awesome. He’s just a super great professor.”
Elliott highlighted the pair’s growth from learning to build rockets as undergraduates to researching additive manufacturing of energetics in graduate school.
“From the time I met Connor and Rett, to where they are now, you just really do see the amazing growth,” he said. “The trajectory of what their careers can be, what their lives will be, you see nothing but positive outcomes. You see them turn into people who are going to affect the world in positive ways.”
Stockman said he can’t believe how his academic career has developed since transferring to UTC as an undergraduate.
“You could have given me a multiple-choice exam with three options in three or four years. ‘You’re going to be here, you’re going to be here, you’re going to be here.’ I’m not picking the right answer once,” he said. “I’m never getting that question right: doing the rockets, being a grad student, doing research, being able to mentor by advising the younger teams, I’m an adjunct faculty member, I teach classes now.
“Being able to have all the different perspectives … It helps you figure out what you really want, what’s even there and what’s possible for you to do.”
Mackey expressed gratitude for the opportunities and relationships he’s built on campus.
“Being able to do this with Rett was awesome because I couldn’t imagine doing it alone,” he said. “Having a friend that you do research with and being able to do research in general is something I don’t know if I would be doing later on—and getting to do it on such a cool topic with an amazing professor, Dr. Elliott.”
Learn more
UTC College of Engineering and Computer Science
Stockman and Mackey did much of the design and 3D printing work.
