Electricity and Electronics (EET3085C)

Course Description

Electricity and Electronics provides a background in electrical principles, circuits, components, and applications, and is explicitly written for electrical and non-electrical students alike. It is a single-semester survey covering DC through AC, taken by engineering technology students who need electrical fundamentals without a two-course circuits sequence.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, EET is the Electronic Engineering Technology prefix and the C suffix marks an integrated lecture-and-laboratory course. Seminole State publishes EET3085C at 3 credits, offered fall, giving approximately 60 contact hours at the standard integrated ratio.

The published topic list is unusually explicit for a 3000-level survey: direct current and voltage, resistance, Ohm's law, power, energy and efficiency, series-parallel networks, oscilloscopes, capacitors, inductors, time constants, sinusoidal AC, effective/average/peak values, phasors, complex numbers, series and parallel AC networks, AC theorems, and maximum power transfer. That is a two-semester sequence compressed into one term — see the pacing flag below, because it is the defining fact about this course.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe charge, current, voltage, and resistance and their relationships.
• Apply Ohm's law and the power relationships to DC circuits.
• Calculate power, energy, and efficiency in electrical systems.
• Analyze series, parallel, and series-parallel resistive networks.
• Apply Kirchhoff's voltage and current laws.
• Apply voltage and current divider relationships.
• Apply Thevenin's, Norton's, superposition, and maximum power transfer theorems.
• Describe capacitance and the charging and discharging behaviour of capacitors.
• Describe inductance and the behaviour of inductors in DC and AC circuits.
• Calculate RC and RL time constants and describe transient response.
• Describe sinusoidal AC and calculate peak, peak-to-peak, average, and effective (RMS) values.
• Apply complex numbers in rectangular and polar form to AC quantities.
• Represent AC voltages and currents as phasors.
• Calculate reactance and impedance and analyze series and parallel AC networks.
• Apply network theorems to AC circuits.
• Use meters, power supplies, function generators, and oscilloscopes competently.
• Interpret oscilloscope displays and measure amplitude, frequency, and phase.
• Construct circuits and compare measured to predicted behaviour.
• Apply laboratory safety practices appropriate to energized circuits.
• Document laboratory work in a technical report.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe resonance in series and parallel circuits.
• Describe magnetic circuits and transformer action.
• Describe semiconductor devices at an introductory level.
• Describe AC power, power factor, and its practical importance.
• Simulate circuits and compare to measurement.
• Describe electrical safety standards and grounding practice.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Charge, current, voltage, resistance
• Ohm's law; power, energy, and efficiency
• Series, parallel, and series-parallel networks
• Kirchhoff's laws; dividers
• Network theorems and maximum power transfer
• Capacitors and capacitance
• Inductors and inductance
• Time constants and transient response
• Sinusoidal AC; peak, average, and effective values
• Complex numbers and phasors
• Reactance, impedance, and AC networks
• AC network theorems
• Instruments: meters, supplies, generators
• Oscilloscope use and interpretation
• Laboratory construction and verification
• Laboratory safety
• Technical reporting

Optional Topics

• Resonance
• Magnetic circuits and transformers
• Introductory semiconductor devices
• AC power and power factor
• Circuit simulation
• Electrical safety standards and grounding

Resources & Tools

• Introductory Circuit Analysis (Boylestad) — the standard, and it covers the whole published topic list of this course in one volume.
• Principles of Electric Circuits (Floyd) — the alternative standard; some students find its phasor treatment clearer.
• LTspice — free from Analog Devices, the industry-standard free SPICE simulator, and worth learning properly.
• NI Multisim — used in many Florida programmes; check whether your college provides a student licence before buying one.
• Falstad Circuit Simulator — free, browser-based, and unmatched for building intuition because it animates current flow.
• All About Circuits (allaboutcircuits.com) — free textbook-quality reference from DC fundamentals through AC analysis.
• MIT OpenCourseWare and Khan Academy — free, and the circuit-analysis material is genuinely good.
• A scientific calculator with complex-number support — required once the AC half begins.
• Your own digital multimeter — inexpensive, and it makes the material tangible.
• W2AEW on YouTube — free, and the best available instruction on oscilloscope technique.
• Digi-Key and Mouser — free datasheets and parametric search.

Career Pathways

• Engineering technologist in a non-electrical discipline — this course exists partly to serve mechanical, civil, and industrial technology students who need electrical literacy.
• Electrical engineering technician — SOC 17-3023.
• Industrial maintenance and automation technician — motors, drives, sensors, and controls.
• Manufacturing and process technician — instrumentation literacy is the differentiator.
• Facilities and building systems — power, lighting, and controls.
• Aerospace and defence technician roles — Space Coast, Orlando, and Palm Bay.
• Utilities — FPL, Duke Energy Florida, JEA, TECO.
• Engineering technology B.S. completion — this is a 3000-level course, so it usually sits inside a bachelor's programme rather than before one.

Special Information

⚠ One term, two semesters of content — pace accordingly

The defining practical fact about this course, and the reason students underestimate it.

• The published topic list spans DC fundamentals through AC network theorems. At most institutions that is two courses — a DC circuits course and an AC circuits course — and this number compresses both into one term.
• Nothing can be deferred. In a two-course sequence a student can be shaky on capacitors in the first term and repair it over the summer. Here, capacitors appear in week six and reappear as reactance in week ten.
• The workload spike is predictable. The DC half feels manageable; the transition to complex numbers and phasors is where the course accelerates sharply. Build the study habit in the easy weeks, because there is no time to build it later.
• Fall-only offering at Seminole State means a failed attempt costs a full year. That is a strong argument for going to office hours early rather than late.
• If you have the option of the two-course sequence and the schedule allows it, take it. Compression serves the curriculum, not the learner.

⚠ Integrated here, split elsewhere — and the numbers are not equivalent

• Seminole State publishes EET3085C — one integrated 3-credit course including the laboratory.
• Daytona State splits the same subject into EET3085 "Electricity and Electronics" (3 credits, prerequisite MAC1114) with a corequisite EET3085L "Electricity and Electronics Lab". Same content, four credits total, two course numbers.
• Under SCNS these are different courses. The suffix is part of the number, and equivalency does not cross it. A student transferring EET3085 alone has not satisfied EET3085C, and a student transferring EET3085C into a programme expecting EET3085 + EET3085L may face a credit shortfall.
• The credit totals genuinely differ — 3 versus 4 — which is a real, not cosmetic, difference at graduation.
• Daytona's split version also lists an explicit prerequisite (MAC1114) where Seminole's course description does not. Do not read the absence of a published prerequisite as an absence of a mathematical expectation.
• Get transfer evaluated in writing. This is exactly the case where an advisor's verbal assurance is worth nothing at graduation audit.

⚠ The mathematics is the course — do not treat it as background

The single most common reason students struggle in circuits courses, and it is almost never the electronics.

• AC analysis runs on complex numbers, and students who are shaky on rectangular-to-polar conversion, complex arithmetic, and phasor notation experience the whole course as impossible. It is not the circuits; it is the algebra.
• Trigonometry must be fluent, not merely passed. The prerequisite is typically MAC1114 or higher for a reason — sinusoids, phase angles, and phasor diagrams are trigonometry with electrical units attached.
• Simultaneous equations are the working tool. Mesh and nodal analysis produce systems of equations, and solving three or four unknowns by hand — and by calculator matrix functions — must be routine.
• Learn your calculator properly. Complex-number mode, polar/rectangular conversion, and matrix solving on your specific calculator will save hours across the term. Learn them in week one, not the night before the exam.
• Units and prefixes cause more wrong answers than concepts do. Milli, micro, nano, and pico errors are the classic silent failure; carry units through every calculation and check that the answer is physically plausible.
• Sanity-check every result. A resistor dissipating 400 watts in a circuit powered by a 9-volt battery is wrong, and noticing that is a skill worth deliberately building.

⚠ Laboratory practice: safety, and the habits that make measurements mean something

• Low voltage is not zero risk. Bench supplies are usually survivable, but line voltage, charged capacitors, and inductive kick are not — a large electrolytic capacitor holds a dangerous charge after the supply is off, and an inductor interrupted under current produces a voltage spike far above the source.
• One hand in the pocket is the old rule for a reason: it keeps current from crossing the chest.
• Power down before rewiring, and verify with a meter rather than with the switch position.
• Meter loading changes the circuit. A voltmeter in parallel and an ammeter in series both perturb what they measure, and an ammeter placed across a source is how meters and fuses die.
• Ground references matter on an oscilloscope. The probe ground clip is tied to earth on most bench scopes — clipping it to a node that is not at ground potential creates a short through the instrument. Differential measurements need a differential probe or a proper technique.
• Component ratings are real. A quarter-watt resistor asked to dissipate a watt will fail, sometimes dramatically, and electrolytic capacitors installed backwards vent.
• Record what you actually measured, not what you expected. A lab notebook whose numbers match theory exactly is usually a notebook that was not kept honestly, and the discrepancies are where the learning is — component tolerance, meter loading, source impedance, and lead resistance all show up in real data.
• Simulate and measure both. LTspice and Multisim predict; the bench tells you what the world did. Where they disagree, something in your model is missing, and finding out what is the entire point.

⚠ Only about two Florida institutions carry this number — hedge accordingly

This course number appears at roughly two institutions statewide, and — as the sections above document — they do not agree on title, credit value, or scope. Content varies far more than it would for a widely taught course. Read your own institution's catalog description and syllabus rather than assuming this guide describes your section, and have any transfer evaluated in writing before you rely on it.

⚠ Engineering technology is not engineering — the articulation asymmetry

The transfer fact that costs students the most time when they learn it late.

• B.S. and B.A.S. engineering technology degrees are applied degrees, distinct from A.B.E.T.-accredited engineering programmes, and the credit does not flow freely between them.
• Engineering technology mathematics does not substitute for the engineering sequence. EGN2045 / EGN3046 ("Engineering and Technology Calculus") typically does not satisfy MAC2311 / MAC2312 for an engineering major. The asymmetry runs one way: the engineering sequence will satisfy the technology requirement, not the reverse.
• The FE exam pathway differs. Florida's PE licensure route under Chapter 471, F.S. is built around an A.B.E.T.-EAC accredited engineering degree. Graduates of engineering technology programmes face additional experience requirements, and the rules have changed over time. Rule 11 applies — verify with the Florida Board of Professional Engineers and FBPE/NCEES directly, not from a programme brochure.
• This does not make the degree lesser. Engineering technology graduates are hired as engineers in fact if not in title across Florida's aerospace, defence, power, and manufacturing sectors — Space Coast contractors, L3Harris, Lockheed, Siemens Energy, and the utilities all recruit them. The point is only that the two paths are not interchangeable, and switching later is expensive.
• Decide early and confirm in writing. If there is any chance you will pursue an A.B.E.T.-EAC engineering degree, take the engineering mathematics and physics sequence from the start.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

EET3085C is 3 credits and approximately 60 contact hours at the standard integrated lecture-plus-lab ratio, offered fall at Seminole State. Expect weekly laboratory work with formal reports alongside a problem-heavy lecture. As a 3000-level course it sits inside a bachelor's programme, and lower-division circuits credit generally will not satisfy it — see the level note above.