Applying virtual laboratories in teaching can improve and complete university lectures. This paper presents four labs that allow engineering students to study and design a pole placement based controller for typical problems: inverted pendulum, Furuta pendulum, crane, ball and beam. The dynamics of the plants, instructions for controller design and test are provided on smartboards of the virtual laboratory. The controller performance can be studied by the model of the real-life application. The mathematical models and controller design are presented as well as the experiences in the virtual laboratory of control engineering.