Team Venus (502) Meeting

Last Thursday, Team Venus met with Dr. Wasser to discuss the ideas and concerns we had regarding our design project. We are to design a device that maintains membrane potential in a skeletal muscle cell. To better understand our task, a basic comprehension of how skeletal muscle cells work is needed.
When a neuron sends a signal to a muscle fiber to "move", an action potential moves down the neuron. At the junction between the neuron and the muscle fiber (the synaptic cleft), the neuron releases acetylcholine, which jumps across the cleft and attaches to the motor end plate. This in turn sends an action potential down the muscle fiber, into the t-tubules, touching the sarcoplasmic reticula, releasing calcium, which in turn causes muscle contraction. When the acetylcholine is removed from (broken down) on the end plate, the action potential ceases, and contraction ends.
Here's our problem: When the acetylcholine reaches the motor end plate, the action potential isn't sent down the muscle fiber. We need to find a way to get this potential down the fiber, into the t-tubules, etc.
This is just the beginning. We know that our device needs to sense when an action potential is needed, and that it needs to respond in kind and regulate appropriate levels of sodium and potassium ions inside and outside the muscle cells, keeping the action potential "alive."
We plan on meeting tomorrow to start working out the basics of our project.