The Last Mechanical Engineer
What an AI engineering project, a Chicago radio legend, and the smell of an old blueprint machine taught me about technological change.
A few days ago, I received a reply to an Upwork proposal.
The client was developing an AI Agent for SolidWorks and Siemens NX. His first question wasn’t about my forty years of mechanical engineering experience. It wasn’t about custom machinery or automation systems.
Instead, he asked a simple question.
“Do you happen to have SolidWorks FEA experience?”
I answered honestly.
Yes—but only the basic SolidWorks Simulation tools. I’ve used them primarily as a first-pass engineering check on individual parts. Helpful for evaluating stress and deflection before building a prototype, but not a substitute for comprehensive analysis.
Then I found myself wondering.
What exactly are they building?
Is this an AI assistant that speeds up repetitive CAD work?
A design copilot?
Or is this the beginning of software that one day designs machines better than I can?
For just a moment, I had the same feeling I remembered from another profession facing technological change.
The Day the Sirius Commercials Started Playing
Back in the 1990s, one of my favorite radio personalities was Kevin Matthews on Chicago’s legendary rock station, WLUP-FM.
His show was funny, irreverent, and wildly popular. It seemed impossible to imagine radio without voices like his.
Then something curious happened.
Commercials for Sirius Satellite Radio began airing...
...on terrestrial radio stations.
Imagine being a successful radio host and hearing advertisements for the technology that might eventually replace your profession.
I often wondered what Kevin Matthews must have thought.
History tells us that satellite radio wasn’t the whole story. Podcasts, streaming audio, smartphones, YouTube, Spotify, and countless other innovations followed.
Radio didn’t disappear.
But the business changed forever.
Today, as I watch AI move into engineering software, I can’t help wondering if we’re hearing the first Sirius commercials all over again.
The Smell of an Ammonia Blueprint Machine
When I began my engineering career, there was no SolidWorks.
There wasn’t even AutoCAD.
There were drafting boards.
Triangles.
French curves.
Mechanical pencils.
Electric erasers that left little pink crumbs all over the drawing board.
And then there was the blueprint machine.
Anyone who worked in engineering before digital drawings remembers the smell.
Fresh blueprints emerged from the machine carrying that unmistakable scent of ammonia.
It wasn’t pleasant exactly.
But somehow it smelled like engineering.
Every revision meant erasing lines, redrawing details, checking dimensions, and making another blueprint.
Changing a drawing wasn’t accomplished with a mouse click.
It was accomplished with patience.
Every Generation Thinks It’s the End
Looking back over forty years, I’ve realized something.
Every generation believes the newest technology will make engineers obsolete.
CAD would eliminate drafters.
Solid modeling would eliminate designers.
Finite element analysis would eliminate prototypes.
Rapid prototyping would eliminate machining.
Now AI will eliminate engineers.
And yet...
Engineers are still here.
The tools became better.
The responsibility never changed.
Someone still has to ask the right questions.
Someone still has to understand manufacturing.
Someone still has to decide whether a design can actually be built, assembled, maintained, repaired, and afforded.
A colorful stress plot doesn’t know whether a mechanic can get a wrench on the bolt.
Experience still matters.
An Unexpected Irony
Here’s what makes all of this especially interesting for me.
While AI may someday automate much of routine engineering work...
The same technology has helped me build something I never imagined.
For the past year I’ve been developing Chesterton Radio—a small online station devoted to old-time radio, classic literature, history, and the enduring ideas of G. K. Chesterton.
Ironically, AI hasn’t replaced my creativity.
It has multiplied it.
Together we’ve researched forgotten radio programs.
Written historical essays.
Created podcast descriptions.
Developed new series ideas.
Expanded old conversations into entirely new ones.
The radio programs I’m sharing were recorded eighty years ago.
The conversations surrounding them are made possible by technology that barely existed three years ago.
That’s a remarkable paradox.
The very technology that makes me wonder about the future of engineering is helping preserve the past.
Amish Engineering Services
Of course, engineers cope with uncertainty the same way we’ve always done.
We make jokes.
After reading about the AI project, I laughed and said,
“Maybe I’ll start an Amish engineering service.”
No AI.
No cloud computing.
No subscriptions.
Just pencils.
Vellum.
Drafting boards.
And common sense.
Finite element analysis performed by looking at a bracket and saying,
“That looks too thin.”
Our slogan practically writes itself.
Amish Engineering Services
“Engineering the way your grandfather would have trusted.”
Now accepting projects by fax.
What AI Probably Won’t Replace
Perhaps AI will someday generate excellent CAD models from a few sentences.
Perhaps it will optimize structures better than I ever could.
Perhaps it will produce complete drawing packages while I drink my morning coffee.
I don’t doubt that’s coming.
What I’m less convinced about is whether AI can replace judgment.
Knowing when a design is too complicated.
Knowing when a customer really doesn’t understand what they’re asking for.
Knowing when the elegant solution is actually the wrong one.
Knowing that a beautiful simulation can still produce a terrible machine.
Engineering has never been only about calculations.
It’s about responsibility.
The engineer signs the drawing.
The engineer owns the decision.
The engineer answers the phone when something breaks.
That’s harder to automate.
More Questions Than Answers
I still don’t know exactly what that company is developing.
Maybe it’s just another productivity tool.
Maybe it’s something much bigger.
Either way, I’d like to see it.
Not because I want to compete with AI.
Because I want to understand it.
The best engineers I’ve known were never afraid of new tools.
They were simply careful not to confuse the tool with the craftsman.
Chesterton Had Something to Say About This
G. K. Chesterton lived long before computers, CAD software, or artificial intelligence.
Yet he understood something timeless about human nature.
He wrote:
“Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”
That strikes me as excellent advice for the age of AI.
Artificial intelligence is an extraordinary tool.
So were CAD systems.
So was finite element analysis.
So was the Internet.
The challenge isn’t to reject new technology.
Nor is it to embrace every new invention simply because it’s new.
The challenge is to keep our brains while using our tools.
The Last Mechanical Engineer?
Perhaps this article’s title is wrong.
Perhaps there will never be a “last mechanical engineer.”
There may simply be a last generation that remembers blueprint machines.
The last generation that learned drafting before CAD.
The last generation that watched radio become podcasts.
The last generation that designed machines before AI became another engineer in the room.
If that’s true, then maybe our job isn’t to resist the future.
It’s to carry forward the best of the past.
I don’t really miss making blueprint after blueprint.
I certainly don’t miss changing drawings with a razor blade and drafting tape.
And I have no intention of giving up SolidWorks.
But I hope the next generation of engineers inherits more than better software.
I hope they inherit curiosity.
Humility.
Craftsmanship.
And the wisdom to know that no matter how intelligent our tools become...
Someone still has to ask whether we’re building the right machine.
Postscript: The Open Door
At Chesterton Radio, we spend a great deal of time preserving voices from another era—not because they are old, but because they still have something to say.
The same may be true of engineering.
Progress doesn’t require us to forget where we came from.
Sometimes the newest technology gives us the opportunity to appreciate the oldest wisdom.
If you enjoy essays like this—where engineering, history, faith, literature, and technology unexpectedly meet—I invite you to join us.
The Open Door is always on.