Difference between revisions of "Action Potential Final Report"

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==Team Action Potential: Modeling the Electrical Currents in a Neuron==
 
==Team Action Potential: Modeling the Electrical Currents in a Neuron==
 
===Participants===
 
===Participants===
Kathryn Barron
+
[[User: Kbarron1|Kate Barron]]
 +
 
 
Joseph Landis
 
Joseph Landis
  

Revision as of 04:51, 17 December 2012

Team Action Potential: Modeling the Electrical Currents in a Neuron

Participants

Kate Barron

Joseph Landis

Abstract

There were several steps that we needed to complete for our project: the first was to decide how to construct our model and attach the LED lights. There were several options, but we decided to go for the most straightforward one, which entailed constructing the model in SolidWorks with holes the size of LED lights. Joseph modeled the neuron, using mostly the spline tool and the extrusion tool in SolidWorks, and Kathryn helped while also planning the lighting effects and creating a MATLAB code to program them. We included every main element of a neuron: the dendrites, the cell body, with a nucleus, two ribosomes and two endoplasmic reticulums, and the axon, which in turn carried the axon terminals. We placed the lights in a way that, through MATLAB coding, we could animate the action potential process by activating the LEDs in a particular region of the cell in the appropriate order: dendrites, nucleus, axon, axon terminals. We ran into some trouble with the proportions of the model in SolidWorks, mainly because of the multiple scalings that we used, so we could not attach the LED lights to the model itself. To deal with this issue we picked out a piece of wood to mount our model on, and the staff in the Wood shop kindly drilled holes for the lights at locations we had previously marked. After this Joseph strung the ground wires together, attached to the shorter wire on each LED light, while Kathryn soldered the E5 Shield to the live wires and, in turn, to the longer wire on each LED light. Kathryn tweaked the program for each set of lights after the physical model had been completed and mounted to the board, and after that step was finished, our project was complete.


Introduction

Kathryn is very interested in Biology, so she had the idea to model a brain cell using SolidWorks. Joseph thought that designing a neuron in SolidWorks would be fun, so we decided

Background/Theory

Neurons are the cells that direct thought, senses, and feeling in our bodies.

Completed Project Design

Results

Discussion