“The Foundation of Control Engineering” is a basic theoretical course for mechanical majors. It is a bridge for learning mechanical majors, which has the mission and function of connecting the preceding and the following. In the traditional teaching process, the following problems are found: students’ enthusiasm decline in class, teaching quality is not high, lacking of contact with relevant enterprises, evaluation mechanism is too single. The strong growth of mechanical graduates would have a decisive impact on a country’s mechanical manufacturing industry and even its future international status. Therefore, attaching importance to the training of engineering ability of mechanical students has become the educational consensus and training trend of engineering majors in colleges and universities around the world. So, how to effectively improve the engineering practice ability of mechanical students, in a scientific and reasonable way to train graduates to promote social progress, meet economic needs, promote national prosperity, adapt to the development of the industry, is an important issue that all engineering colleges and universities need to face and solve in China. To stimulate students’ interest and enhance their engineering ability, this paper explores the reform measures of “The Foundation of Control Engineering” curriculum aimed at cultivating engineering ability, to meet the needs of national development.