CNC has been around for half a century. It's not remotely new, and its application has always been on the final productionalization of parts intended for assemb

CNC has been around for half a century. It's not remotely new, and its application has always been on the final productionalization of parts intended for assembly. I think what it boils down to is that ME is quantified and constrained. If you have drawings for everything else, then you make a new drawing based on those old drawings. We use CAD to determine if something will fit or work; a plastic piece of junk shaped like the part won't tell us anything we didn't know. Likewise, to test the part we need to build it out of the final material, whereas 3d printing for the most part doesn't produce anything strong enough. It's still mostly a Makerspace toy used for plastic widgets. ME is much less artistic/creative than people think. What I find that most people have in mind with "hands-on building" is more akin to craftsman, carpenter, welder, or mechanic, rather than any engineer. Mechanics is a branch of physics. You apply that to parts to build a machine that works. Everything is calculated, from bolt spacing to sheet metal thickness, balancing tradeoffs like weight/cost/strength and so on. Then you write a 50 page report with tables, graphs, all of your analysis. It should be airtight, or people could die.