Paintball Engineers?

[sirmagalot]

I'm gonna be going to college next year and I'm gonna major in engineering (probably mechanical) and I was wondering if any of you guys know what a paintball engineer does and how and if I could do this kind of work. Any info from actual engineers would be sweet.

[ManowaR]

[CameraGuy]

The courses ManowaR mentioned will certainly be a step in the right direction. A few microelectronics or electro-mechanical courses wouldn't be out of place - there are an awful lot of electronic markers out there. Practical shop experience doesn't hurt either.

I'm interested to see if Tom or Manike have anything to add to this, but I don't imagine there are very many engineers out there working solely on paintball products. Working in the field isn't a bad goal, but keep your options open (luckily, most engineering skills tend to transfer fairly easily between different fields).

You might also consider a few business courses (doesn't hurt to be able to sell what you design without a middle man sucking up a portion of the profits ).

As for my background, I'm going into the second year of an Engineering program (and, in fact, about to decide what sort of engineering I want to wind up doing).

[BlackVCG]

This topic comes up about once a year, so here's some previous threads to shed some light on the topic.

Paintball Engineering

More Paintball Engineering

As you'll probably see from these threads paintball engineering really isn't much and you can do far more interesting things elsewhere in the mechanical industry. I'm going into my senior year of college to get my BS degree in Mechanical Engineering Technology and I'll say that you should look more into fields such as Renewable Energy and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

[Star_Base_CGI]

Read about all of Toms products, blow forward paintball gun, perfect circles and the warp feed. Tom and his team make all of that stuff.

People who work on guns are also Airsmiths.

Read about other products people make like, Closed Breech, Open Breech, blowback and autocking guns,.

Part of what they do is take things apart and see how things work. Than try to come up with new ideas for new, different or exciting products people might want.

Go read stuff about the AuTOMag and other guns.

[Rocket Scientist]

Paintball can use more technical people

I have a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from MIT and currently work as a Powertrain Engineer at Buell Motorcycle Co. as well as own a paintball field and pro shop.

I have to say with the exception of a few companys there is serious lack of engineering in paintball. So many designs are just copies and modifications of other products, and the flaws associated with copying something without a full understanding of it jump out pretty quick.

The classes already listed are a good start, I'd throw in a bit of Fluid Dynamic and Thermal.

If paintball is the field you want to go into, go for it, but definately do it because you like the game, not for the money.

As an airsmith you'll be a popular guy if you really understand the details of how the equipment works, so you can look at a gun figure out why it doesn't work not just what is broken, and throw parts at it

Good luck, if you happen to be in the Milwaukee area feel free to drop into our place for a chat.

Dan Hurda
BFG Paintball
N113 W18750 Carnegie Dr
Germantown, Wi 53022

https://WWW.BFGPaintball.com

[email protected]
(262) 250-4BFG

[AlabamaMan]

Originally posted by BlackVCG
I'll say that you should look more into fields such as Renewable Energy and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

I know what youre really try to say Steve.

He is saying that you should goto OIT (Oregon Institute of Technology) and take classes from Bob Rodgers, and Brian Moravec.

[Kevmaster]

Tom's answer is always "Don't get into the paintball industry"

quick and simple