Electric Motor and Drive (EMD) systems are ubiquitous in developed society and it falls to the profession of engineering to utilise these for the benefit of society. Successful engineering practice with EMD systems requires a wide range of knowledge and applied skill that University training is expected to provide. Engineering teaching laboratories are a key way of providing this training and their development is a significant undertaking. This paper describes the development of an engineering teaching laboratory intended to prepare student engineers for industrial practice, outlining the motivation for creation of the lab, the pedagogical design imperatives and describing the final technical configuration of the equipment that has been used to successfully to teach undergraduate and postgraduate students.