Brian Kenton (left), ME422/622 Mechatronics teaching assistant, shows students on how to design a controller to stabilize an inverted pendulum.

Dr. Leang's Teaching Philosophy

Dr. Leang's teaching philosophy is simple: he believes that effective teaching and student learning starts first with engagement and excitement.  For this reason, he actively focuses on integrating exciting and real-world applications into his teaching, followed by using project-based activities to further enhance learning.  He also believes that a good teacher needs to be patient and able to give the student the opportunity to learn by constructing their own knowledge through exploration and experimentation.  He enjoys interacting with his students and finds the experience extremely rewarding.

Courses taught by Dr. Leang

• ME 242 Dynamics, Fall semester
• ME 310 Systems Analysis and Design, Spring semester
• ME 451 Capstone Design, Fall semester (see example capstone design projects below)
• ME 422/622 Mechatronics, Spring semester
• ME 410 Intro to System Control, Fall semester

Students in ME 451 Capstone Design are working on ski engineering by looking at ways to use novel materials, such as nanomaterials, to enhance performance.  Each year in the course students can pick from a handful of design projects to work on and several projects are related to skis and snowboards.  For more information, contact Dr. Leang.

The word "Nanotechnoloski" is coined by Erik Lambert, a writer for Backcountry magazine.  He came up with the word to describe the ski-related projects that are going on here at the University of Nevada, Reno.  The following article appeared in the September 2010 issue of Backcountry magazine: