SYMPOSIUM Part I ELECTRICAL TEACHING LABORATORIES: Their design, equipment and use Available to Purchase

Many new laboratories have been built and others extended in recent years. It would be surprising if, in the process, the same problems did not keep cropping up. It would be even more surprising if fairly common solutions had not been found to a good proportion of them. These areas of common ground emerge in the symposium published in this issue and the next. In the symposium, which is restricted to electrical engineering laboratories, the contributors describe the arrangements in some up‐to‐date labs in colleges of various sizes. The intention is to indicate the requirements which they were designed to meet and, in turn, to relate these requirements to the aims and organisation of laboratory work. The symposiasts, in expressing their opinions, have in total covered this wide field quite thoroughly, but it is not intended to be a survey — there is no documentation of how each point of practice is carried through in a range of different laboratories — rather, good examples of modern methods used in individual laboratories are presented. To agree on standard laboratory plans and equipment lists to meet certain sets of requirements would not be desirable — even if it were possible. Areas where opinions and practices differ will become clear, and further points of difference will, we hope, be brought out in subsequent correspondence. The symposiasts and others designing or reconsidering their laboratories will welcome reactions and suggestions from readers: practical work and laboratory experiments occupy such a significant place in technical education in this country — even judged only by the allocation of course time and the expenditure on equipment — that the fullest discussion and most careful thought must be given to the planning of teaching workshops and laboratories.