An understanding of the hydraulic system is one of the learning objectives of the manufacturing engineering studies. Generally, knowledge of the hydraulic system its components learned from textbooks. The existence of conventional tutorial props are considered can help the understanding of these materials, but this has not enough ability to give a clear illustration how each component in the system is working. This paper aims to look at how far a custom made hydraulic system tutorial props with a transparent flow concept can improve the competence of students in the understanding work of the hydraulic system. The tutorial props of hydraulic system are designed with the theme of material handling, using the robotic 3-arm with a dual-acting cylinder actuator to support the movement of each arm. All components flowed by fluid including valves, hoses, pumps, and actuators are made from transparent material and flowed with visible-colored fluid. The whole system and each component are equipped with a label containing its name and schematic symbol with fluid flow direction. The tutorial props can be operated manually and designed to be easily knocked down. Based on verification using the questionnaire of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to 30 students obtained a value of 3.52 which indicates that the tutorial props are quite acceptable. While based on implementation test by comparing the difference in value between the pretest and posttest of 15 students using textbooks learning method and 15 students using the tutorial props learning method, found that there are significant differences which indicate that using the tutorial props is a better learning method. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.