From Popsicle Bridges to Propulsion Systems: How CEAT launches lifelong curiosity

From Popsicle Bridges to Propulsion Systems: How CEAT launches lifelong curiosity

Thursday, October 2, 2025

Media Contact: Kristi Wheeler | Manager, CEAT Marketing and Communications | 405-744-5831 | [email protected]

Before he engineered hybrid propulsion systems and published at national conferences, before he became chief engineer of a winning Speedfest team or joined the ranks of Aurora Flight Sciences, Rannock Thomas was a kid with a hot glue gun and a box of popsicle sticks.

Ever since Thomas can remember, he has been interested in learning how things worked and building new contraptions. That interest was fueled even more during the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology's K-12 STEM camps, where Thomas was immersed in hands-on challenges that made physics and engineering real.

Somewhere between load-testing truss bridges and launching handmade film canister rockets, a young mind realized engineering was the path for him.

"I had been around Oklahoma State University and the CEAT buildings literally all my childhood," Thomas said. "It made enrolling in engineering at OSU feel very natural."

But it wasn't just a sense of familiarity that guided his decision. While in high school, Thomas joined the Unmanned Systems Research Institute as a summer intern after meeting Dr. Jamey Jacob, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, during Speedfest.

The experience changed everything.

"Everyone was happy to help me learn how to use Solidworks CAD (computer-aided design), how to perform composite airframe repair, and cut custom 2D parts with a CNC (computer numerical control) router," Thomas said. "By the end of the summer, I had done a full design and integration of avionics, engine, lights, and payload platform into an old fixed-wing Mugin UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) airframe, the autopilot and battery mounts, as well as performing repairs on the composite airframe of a crashed fixed-wing drone. I got to watch both fly at the OSU Airfield during the Cloud Map event."

Thomas noted that the opportunity was more than he ever could have expected from a summer internship during high school.

"That internship cemented my choice," he said. "The only college I applied to was CEAT at OSU."

What began as curiosity matured into skill, which was honed across years of research and relentless trial and error, mostly within the labs and classrooms of CEAT. There, he worked for Jacob and Dr. Kurt Rouser, a fellow associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Throughout Thomas' undergraduate career, he tackled interdisciplinary projects that required both mechanical and electrical engineering know-how. One of his longest-standing efforts involved the development of a turbo-electric hybrid propulsion system (a novel engine design that aimed to deliver high power in a modular, swappable format for UAVs).

Over nearly three years, he led efforts to design, prototype, flight-test and refine these systems, eventually presenting his work at the AIAA SciTech Conference in 2023.

Along the way, Thomas found himself at the crossroads of theory and practice, where classroom knowledge met the grit of real-world execution.

"In the CEAT research labs, I got to design and build many electrical and mechanical systems and test rigs and learn how to write and publish research papers; stuff you just don't get to experience in the classroom," Thomas said. "The work at USRI was practical experience of working through the scientific process for research and working to meet customer requirements under tight timelines with limited resources while working on a team. Furthermore, getting to work on hundreds of small build projects and messing up processes or breaking things, I learned many practical lessons about the right and wrong ways of doing things.

"In my opinion, the best way to learn is to submerge yourself in the subject and try, and try, and try again until you succeed."

That persistence paid off.

In his senior year, Thomas served as chief engineer of the Speedfest Orange Team, an intense capstone competition that required students to design, build and fly custom UAVs. When timelines shrank and setbacks mounted, he reorganized the team, implemented new processes and led them to an unprecedented victory.

"I learned that while engineering follows logic, leading a team doesn't always," he said. "That experience really showed me how critical teamwork is to success."

Now a full-time electrical power systems engineer at Aurora Flight Sciences, Thomas draws daily on the lessons he learned in Stillwater. Despite having earned his degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering, it was his undergraduate research that prepared him for the pivot into electrical systems.

"CEAT taught me how to learn on the go, to solve problems regardless of discipline," he said.

To students entering CEAT unsure of where their path might lead, Thomas had some wise advice.

"Be curious. Ask questions. Talk to your professors, even when you're not struggling with coursework. Find out what they are passionate about. Let that energy guide your own discovery," he said.

Looking back on his path from CEAT science, technology, engineering and mathematics camps to undergraduate research assistant, Thomas notes what stands out the most is the amount of practical hands-on projects he was able to take on and learn from.

"From building bridges at the STEM camps, to countless DIY projects at home, to building drones at the research lab, to the engineering projects I work on today, education and growth doesn't have to follow a specific curriculum, it's about staying curious about the world and seeking out experiences that interest you with the idea to keep learning from every one of them," he said.

Photos by: Annie Buford, Phil Schockley and Provided

Story by: Desa James | IMPACT Magazine