XRAY - Model racing cars

I have a question about the R&D guys at Xray. What kind of degree did you have to get to become a designer. I will be attending a university next year and was planning to study Mechanical Engineering. I've been in CAD classes for the past 3 years at my high school and tech centers in 3 hour long blocks. I've got pretty familiar with the program, also with Mechanical Desktop. I want to design R/C cars and would like to know what it takes. Thanks- Ky Layfield

your going in the right direction maybe need to do some automotive classes but being familar with pro Engineer would be more applicable.

The degree will be helpful...consider that todays designs are being analysed with FEA prior to the production of the first prototypes...

The advanced physics and math from an engineering course will be a huge asset in uerstanding just what is going on.(along with Mechanics of materials, courses on polymers, etc)....

Real world experience *IS* important, so is knowledge of machine and maunfacturing processes, so that you can understand what can be easily made with a minimum amount of tooling cost required.

If you're looking at schools with a co-op program, then do yourself a favour...don't look for the cushy office job with the big pay for your summer co-op term. You won't learn anything copying and collating documents, or fetching someone's coffee. Put yourself into a placement where you'll actually have some exposure to coming up with creative ideas on your own, or working with the machines to gain a better understanding of how they function.

I agree nothing beats actually doing something...

Here is what my partner and I (80% me) did for our CNC project @ College. All design and building was done in one semester. AutoDesk Inventor and MasterCAM were used.



That is not the totally finished project though. I'll be darned if I can't find a good picture of the completed chassis... I'm quite upset about that as now it is over 1200 miles away from me and I can't go get more pictures very easily.....

When it was finished there were drive shafts, turnbuckles knuckles and rims and tires (my least fav. part of the whole thing and it was my partner's parts too! )

Looks like a nice job was done...but didn't want to take the thread too far off-topic...

Thanks and good point

to jeff_OKC, nice job on the project....will you ever get it running?

Nope because I didn't get to keep it when it was done. Oh, also that was also a 1/5th scale

I had planned on maybe making it run but we just ran out of time. It was a LOT of work to design, draw, modify and machine all that in 14 weeks time....

oh.....maybe you can design your own cars....maybe start your own company?! lol.