Frog Pond Aeronautics

Michael Cuthbertson II

Founder, Chief Engineer

When I was around sixteen, I watched a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket land on a drone ship in the middle of the ocean. In that moment, everything shifted; I immediately abandoned my plans to study character animation and pivoted to aerospace engineering. Shortly after, I joined the American Rocketry Challenge in 2016, a defining experience that cemented my passion for the field.

My father an airline pilot, I’ve been immersed in aviation my entire life. To build on that foundation, I attended Oklahoma State University, graduating in 2023 with dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. My studies included a heavy emphasis on applied physics, a track I pursued right up until pausing it to plan my wedding.

The Egg

One requirement for the American Rocketry Challenge is that the rocket (depending on the year) must take one or more eggs to a given maximum altitude and return in a given time range. During our first year of ARC, the team members got some markers and each decorated an egg. Eventually through flight testing everyone's eggs were destroyed (for some reason Sky let his egg fly on The Terminator, immediate lawn dart). Except for one. Michael's egg, the one that, surprise-surprise, never flew, was the only one to survive. The egg was colored in fall of 2016 and to this day the egg sits on Michael's desk, a decade later. When Frog Pond Aeronautics was founded in 2026, Michael's egg became the face of the organization.

Page updated

Report abuse