This paper is meant to share our experience on signal processing hands-on opportunities within the formal engineering education at Technische Universität Darmstadt. It is our strong belief that undergraduate students should be offered hands-on opportunities from the very beginning of their studies until their graduation. We describe our projects, lectures and seminars that we provide undergraduate students to gain hands-on experience inside signal processing along the time line of the curriculum. We further describe the variety of laboratories that we offer to expose students to state-of-the-art research and advanced equipment. Finally, we conclude by illustrating how we use competitions to motivate and challenge students with real-world problems.