A locally raised student will be jetting off to the United States next week to compete in the world’s largest university rocket engineering competition.

Freddy Mcloughlan, who grew up between Torrumbarry and Echuca, is studying a double-degree of computer network engineering and computer science at RMIT University.

As part of his studies, he joined the competitive arm of the university’s rocket team, RMIT Hive, in January.

The team is competing in the International Rocket Engineering Competition at the Midland International Air and Spaceport, Texas.

Freddy, who is the newest member of the competition team, will be joining nine of his fellow rocketry enthusiasts on the trip.

“I’m so excited. I think we have a really good chance this year, and it’ll be so good to see everything come together,” he said.

“This is our first year competing internationally, so we’ll see what we can bring to the competition.”

Around 150 teams from the US and across the globe will converge at the event to test their engineering prowess, competing in three different target height categories.

“The goal of our competition is to get to 10,000ft exactly,” Freddy said.

“It’s really an engineering competition, and it’s quite hard to get that close.”

All elements of the rocket, except for the motor, were designed by the students, with Freddy behind the ground control software.

The software controls and communicates with the rocket’s systems, and provides a visualisation of important data.

Constructed of carbon fibre and standing at 10ft tall, the rocket is powered by liquid nitrous oxide and can reach an impressive speed of Mach 0.8, or around 990km/h.

“It's actually quite slow — we have another one that goes six times faster than that, which is in development,” Freddy said.

“The rocket is a hybrid rocket, which is kind of the middle ground for complexity. It’s not quite NASA level, but it’s all quite involved.”

Currently in his third year of the five-year double degree, Freddy is hoping to find a career path that combines software and electronics after graduation.

The Riv has previously covered stories about his aspirations, including to get the NBN connected to his Torrumbarry home: a plight that made it to the Senate.

When it was finally connected in 2017, a 12-year-old Freddy said he was excited to watch YouTube videos that taught him how to build robots.

In the midst of a busy schedule this semester, he said he was looking forward to seeing the team’s work come together in the Lone Star State.

“It’s a massive group effort,” Freddy said.

“We’ve all put so much hard work in. Even if it doesn’t go exactly as planned, it’ll be great to show everyone what we can do and what we’ve made.”

The International Rocket Engineering Competition is on Monday, June 9, and will be live-streamed at soundingrocket.org

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Monday, 13th October 2025

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