Pill Prompt

Never miss a dose with Pill Box: Your reliable countdown companion keeping you on track, while the option of keeping a caregivers informed.

Comment

Inspiration

Using inspiration from the variety of tracks from companies at the networking event, we created a health tech-focused solution that has a wide range of applications. We focused mainly on the accessibility, mental health and big data tracks. Despite all the tracks sparking many ideas, we decided that concentrating on a few meant that we could make the most effective and impactful development for the theme “Innovating for Social Good”. The audiences we wanted to cater to are young people (<18) and the elderly. This is because these age groups require the most aid when it comes to reminders for taking medication and are more likely to need extra support. By integrating technology and hardware components, we have prioritised user convenience. We spoke to consumers with elderly family members, including those with Parkinson’s to see what aspects we could incorporate to make using the pillbox as accessible as possible. This included, using an alarm sound that did not startle the user, screen to show what pills should be taken, only the pills needed to be taken should be accessible, dispenser so that user does not have to open anything and cannot be opened in case of overdose, sensor to detect pills have been taken, link to carer or family to inform them when pills have been missed, screen could display messages from family reminding to take medication, Parkinson’s requires several pills to be taken at exact times throughout the day which are hard for people to remember so an alarm system would help enormously.

What it does

By using an accompanying app, our project can remind the user when to take their medication by sounding an alarm and notification. When this happens, the app syncs to a physical pill box revealing the user’s specific medication dose. Our app not only has the ability to give the user an easier experience with taking medication, but also has an extra feature enabling potential caregivers or family members to keep track of when the primary user takes their medication. Our app aims to improve the experience of those taking medication as this can be a stressful experience for many people.

How we built it

Using software like MATLAB App Designer we used mostly editable numerical fields, buttons, sliders, axis, and labels. Each button used callbacks to create functions that ran when they were pressed, we used while loops to keep the time values updating after being pressed. We used if loops to write code for each day in the schedule and averages. We used the clock function to obtain the current time. We used visibility toggles to create visual alerts and error notifications. We used the Zeller function to calculate the current day of the week from the clock function. We used Boolean algebra to ensure we did not receive calculation errors when finding averages that could be a value of zero. The big data aspect was done in Python and generated JSON files from CSV files. We went through 3 versions of the code, before developing our final big data code which utilises iterating loops to extract the data from CSV files, create dictionaries for each section and add the dictionaries to the main list. Using Autodesk Inventor, we created a CAD design for the pillbox that is easy to integrate the hardware into. Additionally, it had an area for a screen to be placed on the lid to show the user what pills they should be taking. It is made so that no doors need to be opened, for users with Parkinson's or arthritis, as the app will send a signal causing the floor beneath the pills to open so the pills go into an open area in the bottom. Then the pills will slide to the opening, with the aid of the user tilting the pill box, so the user can take them without having to open it. This ensures that only the correct pills are taken, and that it is accessible to all users. As well as the screen we would have a speaker to announce to the user when the pills need to be taken, especially useful for users with blindness or vision loss.

Challenges we ran into

Storing values incorrectly within the MATLAB code meant that when the countdown timer would run, the minutes would decrease at the same pace as the loop, this was due to the fact we were carrying over values to complete long subtraction. We needed to save the display values as separate working values to prevent the carryover from repeating in every counting loop. To fix this, we saved the display values in separate variables to do the calculations.

Accomplishments that we are proud of

Overcoming challenges during the time constraints of the Wackathon and working collaboratively to produce a working demonstration by the end of the competition. We all branched out to use different software and push ourselves to learn new things. Rather than shying away from coding due to being engineers, we applied our strengths to create a solution that is a mix of both software and hardware, providing a unique take on the theme and solution. Even if everything did not go exactly to plan, we are proud that we tried our hardest to produce a project to the best of our ability.

What we learned

We have built on our time management and problem-solving skills under time pressure, which are unbelievably valuable skills for engineers to have. By delegating tasks to the best suited teammate, we utilised everyone’s best skills and parallel tasks meant that more could get done in a certain period.

What's next for Pill Prompt

Adding a GPS or speaker into the electronic design of the pill box to help find it when misplaced would specifically assist the young and elderly – having the ability to find the pill box on their own allows for more independence. Having a setting for high contrast or light / dark mode could assist those who are visually impaired. An electromagnetic lock on the box that could be triggered by the carer app to prevent overdoes in patients with memory loss who may try to take their medication multiple times a day. Having a sensor to detect if the pills are actually taken out of the pillbox and are taken to then send feedback to the user’s carers and or family to alert them that the pills have been successfully taken or not taken.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates