Reddit reviews Racecar: Searching for the Limit in Formula SAE

https://www.amazon.com/Racecar-Searching-Limit-Formula-SAE-ebook/dp/B00637KNZG


This is what you're looking for

Well, some books that might be worth looking at:

Formula Student Finish to Win by Patrik Sipak


Racecar: Searching for the Limit in Formula SAE by Matt Brown

Learn & Compete A primer for Formula SAE, Formula Student and Formula Hybrid teams by Suzanne Royce, Michael Royce and others

Race Car Vehicle Dynamics by William and Douglas Milliken

Race Car Aerodynamics: Designing for Speed (Engineering and Performance) by Joseph Katz

Racecar - Searching for the Limit in Formula SAE

Obviously mechanical geared but:
Machine Design by Norton

Is such a fantastic reference book.

If you're in formula SAE or other such projects
Racecar is a fun book that entertainingly in a short read goes over a lot of the experiences every SAE team deals with from engineering to people.

As others said, Machinery Handbook is a must.

A lot of it depends on what you're interested in. Especially as a mechanical you can go from working on steam turbines in subs to packaging in microelectronics to machine design for some every day product to designing some as seen on tv simple part that just needs to be developed and designed for manufacturability and plastic injection molding to super precise machines that are accurate to microns in positional tolerance to doing energy analysis on a house or a brewery to process engineering with that brewery to advanced control systems and systems engineering.

You'll need to learn a little of everything for your degree but depending on where your career takes you and what interests you, study up.

I was doing machine design and DFM work (and logistics that go with tooling and running a small run product.) In a week I'll be doing r&d work with microprocessors dealing with the structural integrity of chips and thermal issues. I searched around and found some interesting books on advanced thermal design for that purpose. I love machine tools as a hobby and have started getting my own. I love reading about how precision machining developed from less precise machines, how things are made, and building your own tools instead of buying them. There are tons of various books in this area and I also sought out older texts. I got some awesome used books from 1910-1950s that are treasures in my rapidly growing library.

I haven't read some of the books here that others mentioned but look good. In particular some of the management related books. My friend swears by How to make friends and influence people as a great way to understand and manage people better. 99% of the time as an engineer your hurdles will be less technical and more people oriented. You've gotta deal with the marketing people, your bosses, your subordinates, the people who control how much money your project gets, your fellow team mates, the manufacturers, the vendors, machinists, the publc etc. It's a team sport and learning to deal with people well, especially in stressful times with deadlines and deadbeats who aren't pulling their weight is an important skill you may or may not pick up in school.

I apologize in advance for any run on sentences but it was easier to just go for it.

Edit:
Also, sometimes non-computer related degrees get shafted on proper programming education. Learn programming. It helps you think about a problem more logically both for computer programs and regular design. Programming is identifying your problem and desired outcomes and doing so in a step by step manner. Programming can also be really helpful. For example, with Python you can do a ton of math and graphing and all of the stuff you'd do in Matlab practically for free. Scientific computing is a great benefit for any engineer. There are tons of different languages to choose from plus things like Matlab and Mathematica etc.