analogy help

[C is for]

In a couple weeks I'll be discussing, among other things, photoreceptors. My lay audience may have trouble with the concept of action potentials and I want to liken the transfer of energy to some sort of sport or something.

Is there any sport where someone's main job is to receive a ball and pass it to someone else? Wait, I think most sports have that. What is that position called and is there any chance "receiver" is in the title?

Or perhaps another activity. Doesn't have to be sports.

And for you lay people out there, photoreceptor receive light energy and transfer it to other neurons and thence to the brain. Due to reasons. That's all you need to know.

[Katya]

What about an outfielder catching a fly ball and throwing it to home?

[Katya]

(The main problem I'm running into is that most sports have only one ball/puck/object in play at a time, while I'm assuming that photoreceptors catch "balls" of energy and transmit them over and over again. Maybe some sort of sports practice session?)

[Whistler]

so, a fire brigade is basically a bunch of people in a line handing each other buckets to transport water faster... is it kind of like that, only faster?

[Eirene]

I've heard a comparison to a huge, long stand of bleachers full of people doing the wave. Once the cheerleaders can convince enough people at one end to start (transduction!), the wave will propagate until it hits a boundary (which would be a synapse, but I don't know whether you need to work those into your analogy or not). And after all the people sit back down, they are totally refractory because they are so not getting up again for another wave two seconds after they just got up the first one.

[C is for]

I've heard a comparison to a huge, long stand of bleachers full of people doing the wave. Once the cheerleaders can convince enough people at one end to start (transduction!), the wave will propagate until it hits a boundary (which would be a synapse, but I don't know whether you need to work those into your analogy or not). And after all the people sit back down, they are totally refractory because they are so not getting up again for another wave two seconds after they just got up the first one.

Ooh, that's a nice one.

I'll probably just say something along the lines of "The dissociation of rhodopsin will send an impulse down the photoreceptor, which will activate the neurons and send the impulse to the brain" or something. I don't know. Maybe I should do some more research.

[S.A.M.]

Volleyball!

Liberos - Defensive players who are responsible for receiving the attack or serve. They are usually the players on the court with the quickest reaction time and best passing skills.

Setters - Have the task for orchestrating the offense of the team. They aim for second touch and their main responsibility is to place the ball in the air where the attackers can place the ball into the opponents' court for a point.

Hitters/Blockers - Attack the ball.

[S.A.M.]

The libero(photoreceptor) receives the ball(energy), and passes it as accurately as possible to the setter(brain), who decides what to do with the ball(energy), hopefully resulting in a thundering spike!

[Digit]

I'm reminded of this xkcd