Electrical Engineering Resource Guide

Keith Newman
February 3, 2016

ENGL 202C
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Table of Contents
Preface
What is in the Guide

Who the Guide is for

What the Guide assumes users know

How the Guide is organized for use

Tips for using the Guide

Resources
Internet
Mathworks

HyperPhysics

Wolfram Alpha

Khan Academy

Periodical Index
IEEE Xplore

Professional Journal
Radioelectronics and Communication Systems

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Catalog of U.S. Government Publications

Catalog Directory

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Role of Wind Power

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What is in the Guide

This guide contains several resources that are specific to the field of
electrical engineering. Of the many resources this guide offers, there are four
internet resources, a periodical index, a professional journal, and a resource from
the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications. These resources are meant to help
electrical engineering students in their studies and with the general pursuit of
their potential career field.

Who is this Guide for

This guide is primarily aimed towards Penn State students majoring in
electrical engineering. The guide can also help students from other universities
that are majoring in the same area. People that are just interested in the field can
also find use from the resources provided in the guide.

What the Guide assumes users know

This guide assumes the reader has some basic knowledge with respect to
the field of electrical engineering. This assumed knowledge consists of basic math,
physics, and programming knowledge. A freshman intending to major in electrical
engineering should be able to utilize this guide effectively.

How the Guide is organized for use

There are two major sections of the guide: the preface and the resources.
The current section is the preface which outlines the fundamental purpose of the
guide. The other section of the guide is the resource section, which takes the
different types of resources and provides an abstract for each. The abstracts
contain a summary of the important information contained in the resource and
how to use it. The main points contained in the abstract are defining what the
resource is, describing its content and scope, explaining how the content is
relevant to someone in the field of electrical engineering, and some tips on how
to use the resource wisely.

Tips on how to use the Guide

To use this guide effectively first check the preface to see if this guide
applies to you and your current situation. If there is something specific you are
looking for, you should follow the table of contents to see the different sections.
The resources will have small summaries or abstracts below their links where you
can see if this resource would be useful.

Mathworks
www.mathworks.com
Mathworks is a company that develops the MATLAB software, which is a
programming environment used highly by engineers. In the companys website,
there are plenty of resources that could be considered useful to an engineering
student. Most of these resources can be found under the section labeled
Support. In this section, there are tutorials, examples, etc. There is also a file
exchange, blogs, coding games, and a place to ask your own questions to experts.
There is a directory of all the programming commands including instructions on
what they do and how to use them. MATLAB is used by electrical engineers in
many fields. Engineers use MATLAB to simplify mathematical models or plot them
on 2D or 3D graphs. Throughout your time in college you will come across many
courses which require the use of MATLAB. MATLAB is used mostly in courses such
as CMPSC 201, EE 330, EE 350, but could also be helpful for the courses MATH
220 and MATH 250. MATH 220 covers matrices and linear algebra, which MATLAB
is notorious with being helpful for. When writing MATLAB code, use the command
directory to help clarify any misunderstandings about command prompts or to
learn the uses of unfamiliar ones. Also, you can watch tutorials to strengthen your
skills or understand something you are having a problem with.

HyperPhysics
hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html
HyperPhysics is a website dedicated to providing a comprehensive coverage
of physics topics for students and teachers. This website is set up by the Georgia
State University. It was originally designed to assist high school teachers, but
eventually became used by a wider audience as popularity grew. It was developed
to help strengthen understanding of a wide range of physics topics in an
environment that is easy to navigate. This website covers physics topics ranging
from nuclear physics to electricity and magnetism. Each of these major topics has
a number of subtopics that the website goes into great detail to explain for the
purpose of giving the user a more concrete understanding of the material. This
website would clearly be useful for supplementing the required physics courses:
PHYS 211, PHYS 212, PHYS 213, PHYS 214. The electricity and magnetism section
could be helpful in any following electrical engineering courses, especially EE 210,
EE 310, EE 330, and EE 350. The quantum physics section could come in handy for
EE 340. This website is relatively straightforward to use. One tip would be to use
the index at the right hand side of the page if all else fails while trying to navigate
through the topic diagrams to the desired page.

Wolfram Alpha
www.wolframalpha.com
Wolfram Alpha is a popular website, known to be able to help with math
problems such as taking derivatives and integrals. Wolfram Alpha is a website that
is one of a kind. It allows the user to input a problem in free form language and,
using advanced algorithms and data, is able to compute the answer, while
showing a step-by-step analysis and some other useful things. Although, the most
famous feature is the basic mathematical aspect, Wolfram Alpha covers many
other specific areas including electrical engineering, control systems, and sound
acoustics. For example, you can analyze op-amp configurations, which is a major
part of EE 210, or you can have the program help you with RLC circuits, which
could be useful for EE 210 as well as EE 350. If you want to see everything that
Wolfram Alpha can help you with, you need to go to the main screen and scroll
down. There is a large list with different subject areas to choose from. Because
electrical engineering relies heavily on math, this website can be a useful asset
when dealing with any electrical engineering course or required math/science
course. A useful tip for using this website would be to look over the part of the
site under Explore some of the things Wolfram|Alpha can do. You will be
surprised by the range of topics and in what ways this site could help. In addition,
dont use this resource to simply to get an answer for a problem, use it wisely by
checking your answer or reading the step-by-step solutions.
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Khan Academy
www.khanacademy.org
Khan Academy is a website that offers instructional videos and practice
exercises in a broad range of subjects. Most, if not all, of the videos are instructed
by Sal Khan, with the funding of Bill Gates to keep the site running for free. Some
of the subject areas covered are math, science, economics and finance, arts and
humanities, computing, and test prep. Each section also has subsections that zero
in on a more specific part of that subject. Each of these subsections usually align
with a course that you would take. For example, in the math section, there is a
subsection called Linear Algebra which aligns with Math 220, while Differential
Equations aligns with Math 250, and so on. Most of the topics and concepts of
the math, physics, chemistry, and economics courses, that are required for
electrical engineering students, can be found in one of these instructional videos.
To best use this resource, make sure you find the right video, by knowing under
what umbrella of concepts your problem lies. This while significantly reduce the
time trying to find the right video, as there can be as many as 100 videos that
relate to a specific course or subsection. Also, be sure to follow along with a pen
and paper to get the full benefit from the video, instead of passively listening.

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

www.ieee.org
IEEE is the worlds largest association for electrical engineers and is a world leader
in publishing technical literature and creating international standards which are
used extensively. In the website you can explore a huge digital library, called IEEE
Xplore, containing journals, magazines, books, ebooks, conference publications,
standards, and courses. The topics of these findings could range from power to
communications to electromagnetics. In addition, the website contains
information on conferences, events, and employment resources. The
employment resources page is a very useful tool that contains a search engine to
look for jobs in your field around the country. It also provides members with a
resume service where you can use a wide variety of templates, as well as perform
a mock interview. The resources found in the digital library are perfect for
referencing in lab reports or research assignments in any EE course, as only the
most reputable electrical engineering related materials are published by IEEE.

Radioelectronics and Communication Systems

link.springer.com/journal/11976
Radioelectronics and Communication Systems is an international professional
electrical engineering journal that is published monthly and is peer-reviews. The
original versions are in Russian, but you can find the English versions in the link
above. This journal contains advanced material in the area of communications
and electromagnetism. Some of these subjects include antennas, microwaves,
medical radioelectronics, etc. To find a specific volume, you can click on the blue
Browse Volumes & Issues button and navigate through the months to find your
desired volume. However, if you would like to find the latest articles, just scroll
below the blue button to find the most recent articles. This resource could be
especially helpful for someone who is specializing the field of communications,
electromagnetics, and to a lesser degree, those specializing in circuit design or
semiconductor devices. Topics relevant to all of these disciplines are covered in
various issues.

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Catalog of U.S. Government Publications

catalog.gpo.gov/F?RN=563396653
The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications is a catalog run by the federal
government to find their publications through the use of keywords, titles, subject,
etc. This website allows you to search in the search bar near the bottom of the
page for any of their publications, where you will find some information on the
publication as well as a link for certain documents. This is a useful tool because
government publications cannot be found easily, if at all, in most indexes or
abstracts. There is also an image you can click on if you would like to find any
government published ebooks. After you search for a keyword, you can choose
how to sort through the results, and choose the extended or brief display option.
This can help sort through the records more easily since you can tell which record
will be more useful to you with an extended display option.

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Role of Wind Power in Primary Frequency Response of

an Interconnection
http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/gpo47339/58995.pdf
The Role of Wind Power in Primary Frequency Response of an
Interconnection is a document written by Y. C. Zhang and published by National
Renewable Energy Laboratory in 2013. This document covers wind power in
depth. It talks about different topics such as wind power plants, frequency
response, electric inverters, and electric power distribution. There is a lot of
information in this document, along with a very in depth analysis of the data. This
resource is very specific and could not be used to help with a specific class.
However, if you are especially interested in power engineering or renewable
energy, this could be an interesting read. If you plan on taking a class in
renewable energy or green energy, this document can be a very useful reference
in a project or paper.

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