In today's industry and trade, there is an increasing demand for engineers who don't just have excellent competence in their field of specialization but also a good understanding and practical experience in working with engineering projects, and working as members of a team. These subjects are usually not adequately addressed in engineering degree programs. This paper describes our experience in teaching control theory as part of a robot design project. The disciplines like microprocessors, programming, digital and analogue electronics, mathematical modeling and simulation are also the elements of this course. Designing and building a small autonomous robot is also the motivating factor to learn mathematical control theory. The pass rate compared to the classical control theory courses increased from 60-70% to 85-95%.