This paper presents a new methodology proposal and hands-on activities in the Introduction to Computer Engineering (ICE) course, based on open hardware platforms. The proposal has been adopted in the Computer Engineering undergraduate program at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS) — Brazil. Most of the ICE courses from computer engineering programs around the world have put focus on teaching initial basic theoretical concepts of algorithms, logic, and digital systems. The ICE course at UFMS has been organized to encompass from initial basic concepts up to a practical and motivating set of experimental activities in order to clarify the program focus and to connect the concepts to practical applications. To evaluate the impacts of this new curriculum and methodology, an online anonymous survey has been carried out with students from 2011,2012, and 2013 classes. After a statistical analysis and validation of the answers, 28% of the students have pointed that the activities have been determinant to increase their motivation to study computer engineering. The impacts on students motivation, since the first semester, have been observed in the students evasion rate. The percentage of evasions in the computer engineering is less than other engineering programs at UFMS.