Writing
Short pieces on engineering education, design and manufacture, and using AI with judgement.
Position paper · May 2026What colleges, awarding bodies and employers should teach when machines can do the routine cognitive work.
Read the paper →Claude, using MCP, modelled a belt roller assembly in Fusion from a PDF of technical drawings. After 19 years building CAD skills, that was impressive — and, honestly, unsettling.
Loads from LinkedIn, which may set its own cookies.I didn’t report him. I congratulated him. If an assessment can be beaten that easily, we’re not measuring capability — we’re measuring compliance.
Loads from LinkedIn, which may set its own cookies.How I’m bringing AI into my engineering design classes next term — not as a gimmick or a shortcut, but as a scaffold.
Loads from LinkedIn, which may set its own cookies.Critical thinking is treated as the last thing education must protect. That argument holds today — will it in two or three years?
Loads from LinkedIn, which may set its own cookies.Formative work was exceptional. Then came a pen-and-paper test and a short viva — and a 20% first-time pass rate.
Loads from LinkedIn, which may set its own cookies.We tell learners to think for themselves and show their working. Students notice when AI replaces the teacher’s thinking.
Loads from LinkedIn, which may set its own cookies.