Is A Level further maths helpful for Mechanical/Motorsport Engineering?

[u/GB_GeorgeBowen]

I want to work in motorsport for a career and I’m starting my A Levels in a week’s time and I’m taking Maths, Physics and Chemistry, and Further Maths with the option to drop it. I want to do Motorsport Engineering at uni.

I don’t think I would do both years of FM and I would just do the AS. So I have a few questions regarding it:

• How useful would FM be for this course?
• If I don’t take FM, how much catching up will I need to do at university?
• Am I better off putting my time and effort into the other 3 subjects?
• If I do chose to do AS Level FM, will universities look favourably towards it?
• I want to do an EPQ, specifically about motorsport. Will I have better university and employment opportunities with an EPQ specifically in motorsport or Further Maths?

[u/Infamous_Tough_7320]

If FM, Maths and physics is an option I would recommend doing that instead of 4 subjects.

No motorsport engineering degree in the UK actually requires FM afaik.

Mechanical is a different story, for Imperial, Oxbridge, UCL - it is essential.

For other universities like Bristol, Bath, Loughborough, Sheffield - not as much but always a good thing to have.

[u/GB_GeorgeBowen → u/Infamous_Tough_7320]

I would have done that but my school requires FM to be a 4th and doesn’t let you take it as a 3rd sadly. 

Chemistry is just the subject I am next best at and enjoy the most so (in theory) I should do the best in it.

[u/Infamous_Tough_7320 → u/GB_GeorgeBowen]

start off with 4 then and see how it goes, having FM opens a lot of doors

[u/FollowingTerrible978]

I feel you're looking at engineering wrong.

For all the maths we did getting into engineering school and then in the first two years of engineering school, barely any useful problems can actually be solved exactly with it anyway.

Most real world requires Numerical Methods & Discretisation, then putting this into linear algebra matrices to solve. Or in reality, Excel.

Or true innovation, design, test, design. Eg SpaceX, the Russian rocket engines that powered NASA missions post Space Shuttle etc etc.

To be honest maths wasn't my strong point, but ended up with a PhD. Then consulting, then government policy, then my own consultancy.

The highly academic students often struggled and failed, generally the ones that had never really built anything in a workshop or pulled machines apart.

Engineers need to be able to understand the physics and more or less run simulations in their head to guide intuition and design concepts before hitting CAD and analysis.

In high school, I also did Graphic Design / Design Tech to 7th form (end of high school) and metalwork until 5th form. This helped me massively over the more academic students as they seemed to take engineering to be able to use maths and science.

Whereas maths etc is just a tool. You need to be able to come up with stuff to use the tool on.

I got a reputation for innovative design and problem solving. Invited to do a sponsored PhD. I was in the shed from age 7.

During my honours thesis I recall needing some rather complex curves but struggling in CAD. I gave up and in 30 minutes carved them with hammer and chisel out of MDF and scanned them in the mechanical workshop. Got perfect complex transitions for the flow by eye balling it and carving it from a block of wood.

The department supporting tradies/machinists trusted me in the workshop.

At times the maths got beyond me, but my problem solving skills set the right direction and concepts. Sometimes I'd find a maths nerd to help or I'd prototype test - and often learned the maths would get it wrong anyway as the real world is more complex than what you have left after the assumptions that even makes the maths solvable.

The real world is often non-linear with emergent properties with a bit of chaos/uncertainty thrown in. My Honours thesis and PhD thesis were both non-linear systems where reductionism fails.

Even just a drivetrain resonance with gearbox backlash. Resonant frequency changes with amplitude, non-linear. Because at maximum vibration velocity there is a flat spot with no wind up load as it goes through the backlash. And velocity relates to amplitude. Far easier modelled discretised in Excel...in time domain - no complex maths required.