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Pedagogical methodology of incorporating handson laboratory with academic coursework improves retention and understanding. Adopting this lab-based approach for electric drives and power electronics has been limited due to the prohibitive cost of facilities, software, and equipment. Furthermore, the multi-domain skills necessary to implement motor controls and the safety concerns while working with power electronics have dissuaded many universities from offering these laboratories. This paper presents an extremely low-cost electric drives lab using a newly developed model-based simulation software and real-time control platform. An undergraduate-level and a graduate-level electric drives lab developed and adopted by multiple universities are discussed in detail. Finally, this paper presents a comparison of this lab to other alternatives.