Becoming the next F1 designer

[ashf1mclaren]

OK, so you have been through high school you have come out of it with some great grades. your now in sixth form studying physics, design & technology and 3-d art. after this period you hope to achieve some decent grades and move on to a very expensive university course in aeronautics or automotive design.

this sounds like a plan, but what advice would anyone who has been there and got the tee-shirt have, it is a minefield out there and a small amount information could go along way.

i would be so very very great full for all advice

[autogyro]

You might not like this but here goes.
Go and do some motor racing.

[flynfrog]

Find a UNI with FSAE program there are quite a few members on this board that have been through there. Then again none of us are F1 designers. Also try to get an internship with some racing teams while you are in college.

[marcush.]

If the ideas are flying thats a good start...I don´t think a F1 designer would start off by studying and taking on CAD...thats just the tools you need .Knowing all this + taking all the exams does not make you a good designer let alone a new benchmark..I´d bet the Neweys ,Barnards, Murrays and Byrnes of this world were born with a spanner in their hand and a vision in their head...and worked on it till they could put their ideas into reality...these guys for sure were seeing all in their head before ....DMU(or AMU?) in your head if you like .

[greenpower dude reloaded]

You might not like this but here goes.
Go and do some motor racing.

+1

[ashf1mclaren]

yes i believe the same, newey is an exception to CAD as he doesn't like it & refuses to use it, yet he is the most successful designer of all time but his other qaulities like imagining airflow even before wind tunnel tests make him able to understand what he needs to draw and what it will achieve in simple terms

[Jersey Tom]

Career advice point #1 - Don't pigeonhole yourself by thinking F1 is the only career choice for you.

#2 - Prove that you have the capacity to get an engineering degree.

#3 - Join a F.Student / FSAE team and prove to yourself that you love working 70 or more hours a week for no (or crappy) pay, on top of school, with limited spare time and working on unbelievably challenging open ended problems, for which there is no one to turn to for the answer... and you probably wind up getting your ass handed to you or your car blows up at competition.

#4 - If you do get into pro motorsport, be able to distance yourself from being a crazy fan and particularly aroused by one team, series, or design engineer.

For one I'd be very skeptical that Adrian Newey doesn't believe in CAD. That sounds absurd. Calling him the most successful designer of all time is a bit of a stretch, especially considering he doesn't design the whole damn car by himself. And he can imagine airflow all he wants, he doesn't do CFD in his head.

Sorry to sound harsh, but even when I was still doing FSAE we had many first or second year students come in that were super excited about the program and said they'd be around all the time to work and help out... and then the reality of the engineering workload set in and they said to hell with it.

Even of some of the most talented and capable FSAE engineers I knew, very few wind up choosing pro motorsport as a profession. I know a few who have gladly turned it down. Your perspective on life changes a hell of a lot between being 18 and 22 or 23. Racing as a hobby is one thing. Career is another.

[ringo]

I am not an F1 designer, but I would suggest reading a lot and exposing yourself to racing while doing a degree. Also you should do a degree in mechanical engineering first, ignore automotive engineering programs as a first diploma.
Do mechanical, then do a masters degree in aeronautics or automotive design or product design, or something fundamental.

The Mechanical engineering degree is the foundation. It may seem a long way from auto racing, but it's what the best do. They have a greater understanding than the guys who do quick and easy racing degrees.
Look on Newey's profile or any of the top designers. Most of those guys have graduate degrees at a specialization, not necessarily focused on FSAE. The best guys are the book worms.
Racing and wrench work can't teach you much.

[riff_raff]

ashf1mclaren,

If your goal is to do something involving automotive design, and you want to make a decent salary with relative job security and normal working hours, then forget F1. There are very few engineering jobs available in racing, with literally hundreds of applicants pursuing each one of those jobs. And due to the laws of supply and demand, those jobs naturally pay relatively low wages.

In my opinion, the best academic path for someone who wants to be involved in creative design work in the automotive field, is to become proficient at class A autobody CAD surfacing. Class A CAD surfacers are always in high demand all around the world, and earn $100/hr and up. That's way more than any university degree in aero or mechanical will earn you.

But having said that, a decent university education in engineering is still worth pursuing.

Good luck whatever path you choose.
riff_raff

[Mystery Steve]

$100/hr? If that's true, then I'm in the wrong line of work. Surely that must be a typo because I can't imagine a CAD technician being paid roughly the equivalent of a $200K salary.

I'll second the advice to not get too far ahead of yourself. A significant percentage of people start an engineering degree and drop it the first semester because they discover it isn't what they thought it would be or that it is too difficult for them. In addition to that, there is no class called "How to be an F1 designer 101." While the technical information you'll learn is important, earning a degree is as much about learning to think multilaterally and approach a problem with a concrete plan.

Also, I couldn't agree more with this statement:

Your perspective on life changes a hell of a lot between being 18 and 22 or 23. Racing as a hobby is one thing. Career is another.

Your academic and professional career will take many twists and turns. Early on, you'll want to make sure you have as many avenues available to you as possible. As you get deeper into things, you'll find out what you enjoy and what is important to you. Only then would I worry about specializing in any particular field. I don't write this to discourage you, in fact I am encouraging you to pursue it if you feel it is worthwhile, but do realize that Newey and others didn't get to where they are right out of college. They performed other jobs, probably even unrelated to F1 before they got to where they are. I would also suggest if you want to eventually work at a top level of design, that you pursue classes, or maybe even a minor or Master's specialization, in systems engineering and optimization. That is the responsibility of the high level F1 designers, anyway.

[riff_raff]

Mystery Steve,

Here in the US, $100/hr is a reasonable contractor rate for an experienced automotive class A surfacer. Your typical $50/hr CAD jockey cannot produce class A surfacing. It takes a lot of skill, and that's what they're paid for. I've worked in both automotive and aerospace, and probably less than 1% of the CAD operators I have met have the skill necessary.

riff_raff

[Carlos]

OT ... but for general interest a Class A autobody surfacing course description:
http://mayatools.com/courses/alias/level5.htm#

Alias Surface 2011; part of the Autodesk suite is the main course software.

Rhino3D is also recommended by many sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_3D

http://www.rhino3d.com/

Edit - Sent you a PM Mep.

[mep]

Is this class A autobody surfacing comparable to the CATIA generative shape design?

Here in the US, $100/hr is a reasonable contractor rate for an experienced automotive class A surfacer. Your typical $50/hr CAD jockey cannot produce class A surfacing.

Are those 100$/h the costs for the company or the payment the employee receives?

[riff_raff]

mep,

CATIA V5 is the CAD software used by most of the world's automotive OEM's. CATIA Generative Shape Design (GSD) is the base level surfacing module, and is not a Class A tool. CATIA V5 Class A tool is Vehicle Design/Styling & Class A.

http://www.3ds.com/solutions/automotive ... n-styling/

The $100/hr rate I quoted is for contract work. That's what the contractor (not an employee) would receive. If the contractor is working through an agency, the agency will take about 5%.

Hope that answers your question.

riff_raff

[mep]

riff_raff:
I think what you try to say is what I initially thought.
Let's put it into a little example.
A vehicle manufacturer has some design work to be done. They ask an engineering office for a designer (instead of recruiting a own one , but thats a different story).
So they have to pay 100$/h for a class A designer and 50$/h for a normal CAT user but that’s not even close to the actual salary of the man. It is actually much lower. First the agency keeps 5% as you say, I think it’s even more like 9 or 10%.
Then the agency will also take part of the money for other expenses they have like buildings, wages of non designer, cars,...
Then most of the money is taken by the government for whatever reason.
Then you get an amount of money that is paid to the designer but here the government comes a second time to take something around 40% of the money.
In the end the designer gets some money that has little to do with the 100$/h that you stated in the beginning. I think some people got confused by this.

CATIA V5 is the CAD software used by most of the world's automotive OEM's. CATIA Generative Shape Design (GSD) is the base level surfacing module, and is not a Class A tool. CATIA V5 Class A tool is Vehicle Design/Styling & Class A.

Yea now I noticed that there is a special module called automotive class A.
I just wonder what is the difference between automotive class A and the shape design. In principle it should be the same or at least very similar.
Something else I am wondering about is that it seems to be like there are some programmes used by all those people here on the forum that present their self made F1 cars and there are the CAD programmes like CATIA.
It seems like it would be easier to make such a car with one of those “graphical programmes” than with a real CAT programme. You say less than 1% of CAD users can use class A but here on the forum it seems like every schoolboy can make his own F1 car.