The purpose of this article is presenting the CDIO approach development in the mechanical engineering of the Military Institute of Engineering (IME). In 2017, through the triennial academic evaluation carried out by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, the Brazilian Government considered the IME's Mechanical Engineering the best undergraduate course of the 291 Brazilian undergraduate courses evaluated in this area. The IME is a higher education institution of the Brazilian Army, located in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. The CDIO approach implementation in the IME's mechanical engineering represents a change in the teaching and learning process, maintaining the recognized academic content and integrating the practices described in the CDIO Standards. In this way, there is a plan to improve the academical formation of mechanical engineer of the Institute, taking advantage to the excellent theoretical knowledge and adding the skills and competencies described in the Syllabus CDIO. The article describes the reasons for the change, the use of CDIO standards for implementation, and the experiences of the academic staff involved during their development and implementation. This article also presents the development of this academic structure model in the mechanical engineering since 2017, to become a parameter to be used in other undergraduate engineering departments of the Institute, so that they adapt to the CDIO principles and carry out the necessary reforms to improve their curricula. The implementation activities were carried out without a significant increase in the faculty workload, with the creation of new learning experiences. The successful implementation of some CDIO standards has been demonstrated as being effective at increasing student motivation, innovation and problem-solving in both practical, active learning sessions and conventional theoretical knowledge learning sessions.
