When his former teacher returned to work after a spinal surgery left her paralyzed from the waist down, Robert McCarthy noticed something that most people might have overlooked. Despite her determination to continue teaching, she faced new barriers in her daily life — small but constant challenges, like getting her wheelchair over the raised lip of a doorway or opening prescription bottles that weren’t designed for limited dexterity.
“She was one of the best teachers I ever had,” Robert says. “She just made school enjoyable for so many of us. So, when I realized how much those little things were making her day harder, I wanted to do something to help.”
Using the creative problem-solving mindset, he developed at Shad, Robert and a group of his peers began designing affordable, practical tools that could restore some of her independence. They created a portable 3D-printed ramp that could be placed at door thresholds and easily removed, and adaptive pill bottles that could be printed on demand whenever one broke or wore out.
It was a simple idea, but one grounded in empathy, a value that Robert traces directly to his time at Shad in Grade 10. “Our design challenge that year was about improving the wellbeing of Canadians,” he recalls. “It made me realize how science and engineering can directly improve people’s lives, which is something I’ve thought a lot about since Shad.”
Growing up in rural Newfoundland, Robert had always pictured a familiar path: graduate high school, attend Memorial University in St. John’s, and build a life close to home. “That’s what everyone did,” he says. “You finish school, go to Memorial, and find work nearby. I hadn’t really thought about what might exist beyond that.”
That changed when his Grade 10 science teacher introduced the class to Shad. “He spent maybe five minutes before class talking about it — a summer program for students who love science and innovation,” Robert says. “When I got home that day, I looked it up and thought, this sounds incredible.”
His parents were surprised when he told them he wanted to apply. “I think they thought I was joking,” he admits with a laugh. “The idea of me flying across the country alone for a month was huge. But I worked on my essays, saved from my summer job, and sent in the application.”
A few months later, Robert was accepted into the program, earning a spot at Shad’s McGill campus. This would be his first time leaving Newfoundland on his own. “That summer, my parents dropped me off at the airport and that was that,” he recalls. “It was terrifying and exciting all at once.”
The experience that followed changed everything. “For the first few days, I was thinking ‘what am I doing’,” he says. “But once I started meeting people, students from all over Canada with totally different backgrounds, I realized how much I could learn just by being around them.”
Through lectures, workshops, and the design challenge, Robert began to see engineering not as abstract theory, but as a tool for problem-solving and empathy.
“As we worked on picking a design topic and then on our solutions, we kept asking ourselves, who does this help? Why does it matter?” he says. “That focus on the people involved in a problem stuck with me.”
When he returned home, Robert saw the world, and his own potential, differently. “I started thinking, maybe I can do something beyond what’s expected,” he says. “I started to think about going away to university and what my broader options might look like.”
That same mindset came full circle in Grade 12, when Robert learned that Ms. Janes — the teacher who had such an impact on him — had returned to teaching remotely after her surgery. “When I found out she was mentoring students on accessibility projects, I wanted to be involved,” he says.
Working alongside Ms. Janes and another teacher at his school, Robert helped design and print several accessibility tools. “One of her biggest struggles was getting over small doorframe lips,” he says. “So, we created a lightweight ramp she could set down and remove easily.” They later developed the adaptive pill bottles for easier use. “The goal was to make things affordable and repeatable,” he says. “You could just print a new one if it broke.”
The experience confirmed what he’d learned at Shad — that innovation isn’t just about technology, but about people. “That project reinforced why I wanted to study engineering,” he shared.
When it came time to choose a university, McGill was at the top of his list. “I’d already spent a summer there and loved it,” he says. “It’s downtown but still feels like a close community. After Shad, I could picture myself there.”
Now in his second year of mechanical engineering, Robert is putting those lessons into action as a project lead on the McGill Rocket Team, where students design and build hybrid rockets that combine solid and liquid propellants. “It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve done,” he says. “We design and build almost everything ourselves — propulsion systems, payloads, even the structures.”
Each year, the team partners with researchers to include a scientific experiment on their rocket. “We recently worked with a company testing orthopedic bone implants under high acceleration,” Robert explains. “The idea is to see how those materials hold up under the G-forces that astronauts or pilots experience.”
Though his focus is on propulsion, Robert values the collaborative nature of the team. “We have students from every faculty — engineering, physics, business, and arts,” he says. “It’s such a diverse team and we all bring something to the collaboration.”
Robert plans to pursue a minor in aerospace engineering and eventually a master’s degree, with hopes of working in Canada’s growing space sector. “I’d love to work with the Canadian Space Agency or a private company in aerospace,” he says. “People think of space as something far away, but the technology developed for it often benefits us now in real terms.”
For Robert, that’s the through-line: using innovation to improve lives. Whether he’s designing accessibility tools or testing propulsion systems, the motivation is the same. “Knowing that what I create could make life better for someone — that’s what drives me,” he says.
He often shares that message with students back home in Newfoundland. “I try to tell younger students not to be afraid to look beyond what’s familiar,” he says. “Leaving home for the first time was scary, but it changed a lot for me. It showed me there’s a whole world out there waiting if that’s what you decide.”
Through his studies and his drive to keep solving meaningful problems, Robert continues to prove that innovation is not only about what we build–but why we build it, and who it’s for.
