Development of an undergraduate electrical machines laboratory

An electric machinery course and its associated laboratory has been introduced to the Electronics and Computer Technology program at North Carolina A&T State University, USA. The program prepares highly trained technologists for the computer, communications and manufacturing fields. The electric machines course is required of all undergraduate students in the program and consists of two contact hours of lecture and two contact hours of laboratory work per week. The electric machinery laboratory consists of seven industrial motor trainers that have been proven to be functional and instructive. The trainers use small machines that offer ease and flexibility in wiring the associated diagrams. After outlining the features of the industrial motor trainer, different types of experiments are described. Finally, student response to the experiments are reported.