HP 35s a good choice for Mechanical Engineering student?
January 6, 2011 4:28 AM   Subscribe

I'm in my second year and so far my cheap little TI 30xIIs has worked fine for me, but my DC Circuits professor told the class that using the TI 30xIIs is cumbersome compared to the HP 35s for some material later in the semester. He said he highly recommends purchasing an HP 35s. I'm willing to spend the $50, but he's an Electrical Engineer teaching electrical classes. Would the HP 35s be good for me as a mechanical student?
posted by atm to Technology (10 answers total)
 
Best answer: Depends if you want to learn RPN. While the 35s does have algebraic mode, it really works best in RPN. HP RPN calculators have batteries that last forever (except the 48, 49 & 50), and no-one will ever "borrow" your calculator since they don't work as immediately expected.
posted by scruss at 4:47 AM on January 6, 2011


Best answer: I did my whole aero/mechanical bachelor's degree with one of the TI scientific calculators and never had a problem. The curriculum included a few low-level electrical courses.

You might want a graphing calculator later on, but you get the same results from MATLAB or (God help you) MAPLE.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:06 AM on January 6, 2011


Best answer: Yeah, see if you can test-drive a buddy's to play around with RPN. My dad is a structural engineer who absolutely hates RPN, I'm a programmer who thinks he's loony; I think RPN is preferable even just doing taxes.
posted by Rat Spatula at 5:31 AM on January 6, 2011


Best answer: my 4 years as an aero eng. student taught me to love RPN. I'm a programmer these days, but the old HP48 is still my calculator of choice. (well, that and the command line RPN calculator "dc"). but yeah, there is a bit of a learning curve as you learn to not use algebraic notation.
posted by russm at 6:09 AM on January 6, 2011


When I was freshman engineering student, I dutifully bought the HP graphing calculator I was told to. Paid for it out of my grass cutting money. About two weeks later, I parked crooked. Someone driving up looked at the spot next to me, and asked if I could pleas straighten out so they could use the spot. I replied in the affirmative, dropped my pack, and roled my car back and forth to straighten out. Only...I'd partially run over my backpack (I was driving my '70 impala at the time...huge car, small pack, no contest). The calculator had a Blue Screen of Death - not the windows kind, but of the LCD-is-leaking kind. I made it through the remaining four years with a fifteen dollar graphing calculator. Now, I had to get pretty good at visualizing various graphs, and doing small matrices on Matlab, but it's doable.
posted by notsnot at 7:37 AM on January 6, 2011


Best answer: I think backseatpilot has the right perspective. Can a PC solution work for you? Is the fancier calculator going to be needed during exams? If so, you may need to consider investing in one (though I'm not sure if he's recommending the HP RPN because RPN will be useful for the class, or because he really likes RPN and is trying to convert his students)

If you will only need the calculator for out-of-class work, then I would definitely look into borrowing a calculator or using the PC solutions since unless you really want to learn RPN (there *are* definate advantages I'm told, esp when adding a lot of numbers), I'm not sure how much that investment will pay off in the long term. If you aren't an electrical major and he's recommending it for one of the few electrical classes you are taking, I would be hesitant too, but I've never used RPN much and wouldn't know if it would be hugely advantageous for a mechanical student. However, I know of MechEs who used RPN calculators and did just fine, so it wouldn't be a hindrance once you get past the learning curve.

Disclaimer: I'm a MechE working in aerospace structures and use my little TI-30xIIs everyday (I'm on my second one and will buy a third when/if this one dies). For midlevel stuff I use excel. For fancier stuff I fire up MatLab. My lead has an HP calc and says it annoyed him to no end when he started using it, but now prefers it (but doesn't evangelize about it or claim it's vastly superior to non-RPN calculators).
posted by johnstein at 9:23 AM on January 6, 2011


Best answer: I despise RPN. This is the primary difference between TI and HP: RPN in HP. I'm not familiar with the current lineup of TI's, but I'm pretty sure that functionality wise there is an equivalent TI.

(Back when I used calculators, the high end was HP48 vs TI85, and I loved my TI85 and it drove me mad when I occasionally borrowed my friend's 48)
posted by wildcrdj at 2:42 PM on January 6, 2011


Response by poster: So it seems that to-RPN or not-to-RPN is really the question. Hmmm.

I've read a little about RPN, and from what I've gathered:

Pros: less keystrokes and no parenetheses
Con: some unknown degree of learning curve.

More help please.
posted by atm at 6:13 AM on January 7, 2011


Best answer: Will you take the FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) exam? If so, I think that is another question to consider in this decision. Unfortunately I can't help you directly with your stated question, but possibly from this angle which is more or less similar for all engineering disciplines.

I bought the HP-35s as my first RPN calculator after graduation with a EE degree to use specifically for studying for the FE exam. All through undergrad I had used a TI-89 Titanium almost exclusively. Had the graphing calculator not been allowed, I would have looked for a scientific calculator that could handle complex math for the EE courses. Being fast with complex numbers and using phasor notation which the TI-89 and notably the HP-35s handle was very critical. I believe it is that point which your professor is trying to make as well. Your TI 30xii does not have support for complex math, which may suggest that you would consider a different calculator for the FE exam. The list of approved calculators is very short.

Handling RPN was not an issue for me after using the quick start book with the calculator to just get the button order down. Like any change of calculators your mind has to become rewired for the change in button location. I greatly prefer RPN now over algebraic, which admittedly is a personal statement. I feel the learning curve should be negligible for an engineering student.

Since using the HP-35s to study for the FE a year ago, I have taken a graduate level course in EE and used the HP exclusively through the course. I felt very confident using it for homework and tests.
posted by metroidhunter at 9:14 AM on January 7, 2011


Best answer: atm - it's not just "less keystrokes and no parenthesis", but more that an RPN calculator with unlimited stack like the HP48 (or whatever the current model is) works with you as you move through a calculation... if you're doing something with many intermediate stages, you don't have to either work out the entire calculation before entering it, or use a bunch of saved variables, because the stack holds and displays all your intermediate products for easy reference and further manipulation... personally, at least, I find it much easier to work through a something complex when I can see where I've been already... admittedly it takes a while to get used to working that way, but I've come to find it invaluable...
posted by russm at 3:56 AM on January 8, 2011


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