Implementing virtual laboratories: Remote teaching of electrical machines

One of the fundamental requirements of engineering education is laboratory work and practical teaching. The main purpose of the laboratory is to provide a space for students to carry out practices that allow them to check the theory learned in the classroom, validate hypotheses, propose solutions and recommendations, develop critical thinking skills and develop soft skills. The provision of laboratory work to engineering students helps them familiarize themselves with similar situations as they will find real life as they practice their profession. Primarily, this laboratory work is based on actual hardware and a laboratory where the students can work at a specified time, perform experiments under the guidance of a lab technician and leave with data that they can analyze later using the knowledge they learned in class. These laboratories and the hardware equipment in them are expensive to acquire and maintain. Also, they are an expensive upgrade, yet upgrading is inevitable with the rapid change in technology we are all experiencing. Various institutions have been forced to use outdated laboratory hardware or do with minimal hardware for performing engineering experiments. However, the rapid increase in technology that is contributing to the problem can be used to solve it by having a suitable front-end design in computers that can be used to simulate experiments.