The Rocket Mocs have plans to ascend to new heights. The team, comprised of junior and senior mechanical engineering students in the UTC College of Engineering and Computer Science, has been accepted into the 2025 Student Launch Challenge—an annual competition sponsored by NASA—for the seventh consecutive year.
Mechanical engineering graduate solving problems on the football field
UTC nickelback Reuben Lowery III is one of two Mocs named to the prestigious Senior Bowl Watchlist, but he is better known off the football field for his academics, including a 3.78 GPA and a degree in engineering.
Searching through about 850 stories finds 15 personal favorites
Shawn Ryan, who is retiring at the end of the year after spending seven years with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Division of Communications and Marketing and around 40 years in journalism, searched through 850 stories to share his 15 personal favorites.
Rocket Mocs preparing for NASA competition
For the fifth consecutive year, the Rocket Mocs have qualified for the NASA United Student Launch Initiative (USLI) Challenge. The team has to build a rocket that can reach an altitude of at least 4,000 feet—but no higher than 6,000 feet—for their competition launch.
Rocket Mocs make NASA competition for sixth straight year
The Rocket Mocs team has earned NASA recognition as one of the best in the country for a fifth consecutive year. The team is again competing in the NASA Student Launch Challenge, a nine-month-long competition in which student teams from across the U.S. design, build, test and launch high-powered rockets carrying scientific or engineering payloads.
Rocket Mocs member recovers from burns while team recovers from setback to enter NASA competition
Dottie McSpadden knew her arm was burned, but it didn’t feel that bad. At least not at first. A couple of hours later, though, she’d changed her mind. “Oh, it was a nine out of 10,” she said. “I have not felt pain like that.”
The sky’s the limit: Ashwyn Sam’s journey from Chatt State to UTC to Stanford
After graduating from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2020 with bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering and mathematics, the guiding light in Ashwyn Sam’s career path was academia.
Rocket Mocs preparing for another liftoff
In early October, the Rocket Mocs—comprised of students in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga College of Engineering and Computer Science—learned of their acceptance into the 2023 Student Launch Challenge.
Just plane fun
Paper planes were flying—sometimes—across Chamberlain Field.
Ashwyn Sam: Full-ride Knight-Hennessy scholarship pays for three years at Stanford
Ashwyn Sam admits it: He’s kind of a procrastinator. “I like to think that I like to work slow, but it’s actually procrastination,” he says with a smile in his voice. His drive to “work slow” is why, when he decided to apply to be one of the prestigious Knight-Hennessy Scholars for 2020—a scholarship worth…