Drew Cahill

I’m Drew Cahill and I was lucky enough to be part of the 2024 One Giant Leap Australia Space Tour USA Group, supported by the Electro Optic Systems Scholarship.

I wouldn’t say I’m much different than any other student that’s interested in STEM. I enjoy Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Digital Technologies at school and try to keep up with current developments in these fields whenever I can.

Following the trip, I also had the opportunity to be able to participate in the 2025 Kibo Robot Programming Challenge, allowing for me to scratch my itch of coding and space in the one go. My team and I were able to achieve third in Australia, an impressive feat considering how we weren’t sure how we would go heading into the challenge.

By being a part of the Trailblazer’s program, I see it as a chance for me to encourage other like-minded students to pursue interests, however small, in STEM and the space industry. Over the past couple of years, I have been able to see what can happen and how these trips can change people. I would love to see as many people get the same experience that I was lucky enough to be a part of.

If I would have to say I’ve learnt only one thing from this journey it would be to take every opportunity that comes your way. You don’t know how far you can go if you say no or just don’t give it a shot, but, if you say yes the possibilities on where you can get to are limitless.

For me, by giving this program a go, giving myself a chance I was literally able to travel across the world, meet the most amazing people, participate in an incredible program that taught me so much, not just about space but about what I can do with my future.

So, I encourage everyone else I meet to do the same, apply for things you may think you’ll never be able to get.

Things are possible,

Drew

Hi! Me again…

It’s been a couple weeks since I wrote the above and I have got some notes:

For anyone that happens to stumble across this website:

Don’t see what other people have achieved and think ‘I haven’t done much’ or ‘I’m not good enough for this’ but instead think, ‘that is something that I can do,’ ‘that is something I will apply for and have a go at.’

If you happen to have many of the same interests as someone you see here and want to know more about them, many of us have some way to be contacted on our pages, if we don’t – contact One Giant Leap and they can get your question across to us.

While I was lucky enough to meet the people in this group and hear their stories firsthand, I can only hope that through these pages that you will get to hear about at least half of the experiences and opportunities that have shaped us all.

For those who have made it this far:

I know I just said that you shouldn’t compare yourself to others in a negative way, but I probably should have done some more self-promotion. Compared (again that word) to everyone else I’ve gone on a few tangents to the task at hand, but I do truthfully wish for someone to see this and do something from it. Hopefully what I have written can help send messages to those who need them and can help to portray me in somewhat of a positive light.

You are only ever your harshest critic – e.g. just above – but you are also the person capable of recognising that what you have done is enough. Comparison is okay when it is used to better yourself and better the outcome, not when it is used to put yourself down.

My LinkedIn is still a work in progress and can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drew-cahill/

I’ve also added some more photos – I considered to tell a story about perseverance, reaching your goals and the feeling of accomplishment that you get when you do something that may be out of your comfort zone or seems to just be physically out of your reach with the photos of me climbing up a pole during one of the space camp activities. While they are a bit jumbled here and there are more somewhere, I think they show just enough to paint a picture that more or less describes what I have just spoken all about. I really have to give some kudos to the photographers at Space Camp for capturing so many important memories.

Another thing and some less general advice (last thing I swear), if you can go to Space Camp with One Giant Leap Australia, do it. While writing all this and finding photos of myself, I was reminded by how genuinely interested and happy I was to be there. Because I’m bad at taking photos of myself, I don’t have as many photos of myself from the first half of the trip, but that is not to discount how important that part was to me, to get to meet many different but similar people for the first time will be something I’ll never forget.

I’ve already written enough post scriptum but I feel I need to sign off again…

Enjoy what interests you,

Drew Cahill