Surface Warfare Officer School Unit (SWOSU) Great Lakes held a graduation ceremony for Sailors who completed the Surface Ship Electronics Advance Maintenance Course (SSEAMC) "C" School at Electricians Mate (EM) School House, Feb. 8.

Students who passed the three-month class were the first who went through the course following an update in the curriculum.

"SSEAMC has long been recognized as the culmination of Electrician's Mates technical life-long learning curriculum in the surface fleet," said Cmdr. Terry Patterson, commanding officer of SWOSU Great Lakes. "While the theory and troubleshooting techniques taught within the curriculum have remained stalwarts for master level proficiency, changes and modernization of shipboard equipment had rendered much of the legacy course as obsolete.

"The course was revised to include new partial task trainers, virtual training delivery, updated and or replaced technical training equipment and a number of new systems. All intended to produce a highly skilled electrical technician, capable of transferring the new skills learned to a wide array of shipboard systems in fleet."

Working on the recommendations from the Fleet, the school completely updated its materials, dropping obsolete training, enhancing existing instruction and added new subjects. Sailors who attend SSEAMC "C" School are issued tablets with the course material loaded on to assist them in the instructor led course and lab work. The tablets also replace more than 2,500 pages of printed materials. Once the course is complete and tablets are turned in students are able to get a copy of all materials provided on the tablets.

"It's a very challenging course for both students and instructors," said Electricians Mate 1st Class Anton Lebed, SSEAMC instructor at SWOSU. "As a student you have a lot of new information that you need to not just memorize but actually comprehend, and as an instructor you are constantly challenged with hard questions from student, so instructors have to have very in depth understanding of every subject they teach. Upon graduation students would be able to confidently troubleshoot any equipment, even equipment not covered in the course."

Created to instruct Sailors on the operation and troubleshooting of any piece of Surface Warfare electrical equipment subjects may sound foreign to average Sailors. Solving electrical/electronic algebraic and trigonometric formulas, connecting three-phase transformers Delta/Wye, and Programmable Logic Controller Theory of Operations are a couple of subjects they have to master.

Utilizing labs, enhancing instructor training, students start with the NIDA Electronics Trainer studying circuit analysist. Throughout the course they progress to a number of more difficult labs; a new Equipment Switchboard lab, Auto Bus Transfer System and Synchronization equipment.
The final course, Advanced Degaussing System; Fundamentals, Operation, Troubleshooting, is a culmination of all previous labs.

Everything taught and all labs taken prior to the degaussing system lab are part of the degaussing system. It is the job of the student to troubleshoot an inputted issue within a 30-minute time period. A system that's schematic forms highways of transformers, capacitors, diodes, amplifiers and transistors that is comparable to road maps of large cities.

"As there are different types of learners, and we try to hit every learning style we first explain the theory and prove it with math, then in lab settings students' work on actual equipment to validate their understanding of theory and the math behind it," Lebed said. "For example, in class we go over Delta transformer and explain theory that if one winding is open it will still maintain its output voltage, and then we go to the lab where students wire a Delta-Delta transformer, take readings and see for themselves what happens if one winding got open."

Electrician's Mate 1st Class Brenntly Woods found the course challenging and rewarding.

"I enjoyed the class and learned a lot," Brenntly said. "This course is able to give someone with only basic knowledge the ability to work on any type of equipment in the Navy. I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in improving their skills as an EM."

The SSEAMC course is held 11 times a year and each class is able to accommodate 12 students. It is highly recommended that Sailors interested in taking the course complete the Navy Electrical Engineering Training Series (NEETS) modules. Instructors have found that those who complete the NEETS modules are more successful in the SSEAMC School.

"New graduates will go back to the Fleet with experience in high voltage switchboards, basler voltage regulators, electrical governing speed control systems, variable speed drives, motor operated valves, PLC controllers, degaussing systems and maintenance requirements for a variety of different electrical components," Patterson said. "The course is extremely fast paced and challenging. Prospective students should review Cantrac prerequisites and be sure to accomplish all of them prior to their arrival."

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