{"id":150963,"date":"2026-02-19T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=150963"},"modified":"2026-02-24T13:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T18:57:10","slug":"forbes-2026-30-under-30-winner-soarce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/forbes-2026-30-under-30-winner-soarce\/","title":{"rendered":"Forbes 2026 30 Under 30 Winner: Soarce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soarce\u2019s path to revolutionizing the world of material science grew from the ashes of a blown-up rocket experiment while Derek Saltzman \u201923<\/strong> and Mason Mincey \u201923<\/strong> were still engineering students at UCF.<\/p>\n

They had been tasked in a semester-long class assignment to build a carbon fiber rocket that would successfully carry the professor\u2019s payload. While their design may have failed epically \u2014 while being broadcast live on the internet \u2014 they noticed one very important element that turned out to be the spark for their future company.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we walked up to the rocket, we saw that the motor had gone through a 2-inch-thick steel plate, but the carbon fiber that we had made was intact and still super strong and actually protected the professor\u2019s payload after exploding and crashing,\u201d Saltzman says. \u201cWe said, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re pretty good at manufacturing this [carbon fiber] stuff.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

They took it as a sign to change their majors from aerospace engineering<\/a> to materials science and engineering<\/a>, and the earliest roots of Soarce were planted.<\/p>\n