This paper presents and analyses a novel open lab project on heat transmission for advanced students in a Physics undergraduate class. This project was designed to address the specific challenges of teaching students whose major is engineering. In particular, we describe how an open project allows students to bring into play competences related to their professional training. We focus on the competence of graphical representation and on the competence of identifying, formulating and solving engineering problems. We take into account students’ individual and group reports, and also the final evaluation. We developed key indicators to evaluate how these
lab projects encourage the development of specific competences.
