This paper presents the development of an educational immersive virtual reality (IVR) program considering both technological and pedagogical affordances of such learning environments. The CDIO Standards have been used as guidelines to ensure desirable outcomes of IVR for an engineering course. A learning model has been followed to use VR characteristics and learning affordances in teaching basic principles. Different game modes, considered as learning activities, are incorporated to benefit from experiential and spatial knowledge representation and to create a learning experience that fulfils intended learning outcomes (ILOs) (defined by CDIO Standard 2 and Bloom’s learning taxonomy) associated with the particular course moment. The evaluation of IVR laboratory highlights effectiveness of the approach in achieving ILOs provided that pedagogical models have been followed to create powerful modes of learning.