Complex, realistic activities can provide a powerful support for the acquisition of professional competences since they make students face the challenges they will find in the real world

Complex, realistic activities can provide a powerful support for the acquisition of professional competences since they make students face the challenges they will find in the real world. However, the development of this kind of activities is usually a difficult task. First, making students solve motivating and challenging tasks with certain autonomy requires large efforts from the teachers. Additionally, in order to maintain the realistic flavour, it is interesting to dispose of professional resources where students can find the information they need to solve the problems without depending on the teachers inputs. As a solution to overcome these problems, the paper proposes using the resources provided by professional design contests in the development of teaching activities. To show that idea, the paper presents the results of the application of the materials from a conference design contest in an embedded design course.