We describe a new approach to teaching the mechanics laboratory course. In addition to traditional educational goals, the course aims to prepare students for self-directed independent work. The course contains three parts, each part differs from another in expected amount of self-managed activity. The main innovative part of the course is the third one. In this part, each pair of students is expected to implement their individual small projects. In order to realize this part of the course we have developed a collection of more than 50 experimental tasks in mechanics. It can be noted that the tasks in mechanics are a part of a larger collection of more than 100 self-directed tasks. All tasks were tested during years in real laboratory environment. Students give positive feedback on this form of work.
