Interesting and effective environments to encourage students' understanding of concepts and ideas in the engineering curriculum are faciliated by the application of statistics in laboratory experiments, by the availability of automated PC-controlled data acquisition systems, and by the use of statistical analysis tools in data collection. This paper provides a description of engineering programmes that have successfully used automated data acquisition systems to implement data collection and analysis experiments. The goal is to challenge students to make decisions about statistical issues such as the following: sample measurement design; appropriate statistics for summarizing measurement data and their reliability; suitable graphical representation formats; the choice of procedures for making salient comparisons; and suitable procedures for estimating the parameters of a theoretical model in the presence of variability in the measurement data. Reference is made to engineering laboratory experiments in the following areas: instrumentation laboratory courses, performance analyses of engineering systems, computer simulation models, optimum product design, computer-aided material testing, process control laboratories, and pilot plant experiments. The integration of these tools into laboratory activities has resulted in a revitalization of many curricula. The approach offers opportunities to gain new, more rigorous, and creative engineering environments that allow for the development of more powerful engineering applications.