A Projects Laboratory for Electrical Engineering Students

This paper describes a laboratory course in electric machines and power systems that is under development at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for senior electrical engineering students. The basic premise being followed is that students learn only by doing original work in which they are genuinely interested. Therefore, the assignments consist of original projects, selected by the individual students which require making and testing some novel assembly of machines and circuits. Examples of these projects are making a mercury electric pump, making and testing various forms of reactor with alnico, solid steel, or copper sections inserted in the ac flux path, developing a novel battery charging circuit for automobiles with ac power supply and a static current regulator in place of the usual voltage regulator, and testing a self-excited alternator of novel design with a static voltage regulator.