A medication alert and dispense system with adjustable dosage time and compliance monitor.
CS 3651 Summer 2013 - Summet
Automatic
Medication
Dispenser
Modern Medication is incredibly difficult to manage.
Elderly patients regularly must track dozens of different dosages during the course of a week.
Independent living should not mean extra stress over healthcare
New system should alow for alarm based reminders and delivery of medication along with monitoring of compliance.
How this product works
AMD must first be filled with medication looking at the day of the week and time that they are due. The Medication disk is then turned to be inline with the next dose and the lid is replaced and locked. The user then enters the setup mode in the touch screen to set the dosing frequency. AMD then takes over the task of rotating the disk for each dose followed by a verbal alarm for an hour or until the user opens the latch to get his medicine and touches the screen to confirm that he has taken the dose. If the dose is not taken within an hour then this is recorded by AMD as part of compliance data. (Technical workings described in construction page)
Our Motivation
Team Members
Vinay Reddy
- Mechanical Design
- Construction
(Currently working toward a GaTech BS in CompE degree, likes video games, chess, and bar hopping)
Suvrat Jain
- Electronics
- Programming
(Currently working toward a GaTech BS in Elect.E degree, likes processing signals and taking lots of classes)
AMD Video
Problems faced with Project
Problem: Acrylic cannot be laser cut accurately at thickness of ½ inch or greater. We found this out after we purchased the material.
Solution: Cut thinner pieces of Acrylic and glue them together. So another trip to the acrylic supplier.
Problem: Acrylic is never the same thickness as is quoted. It always has a range of +/- 10%, so you don’t know the actual thickness until you buy it. Sometimes the thickness varies within the same sheet. Being off by even one mm was not acceptable.
Solution: After buying the Acrylic we had to measure with calipers for actual thickness and recalculate all of the dimensions to make sure that our parts would fit. So we had to make a few trips to the acrylic supplier.
Problem: The welding agent was not working we thought since after an hour the pieces were coming apart with light pulling. We did not know that we have to wait 24 hrs for full strengthening of the weld. So we decided to glue them together using a methacrylate based epoxy. This ruined our contours and our millimeter precision dimensions. So we now had to figure out a way to get rid of this gooey glue. The company that manufactures this product informed us that once the product cures there was no way to get rid of this without destroying the substrate. Wow! Did we just blow the whole project?
Solution: After thorough research we decided to soak the glued parts in Isopropyl alcohol in the hope that we did a sloppy job with the gluing and were perhaps sitting on uncured glue. It worked. Apparently this glue does not cure if exposed to too much oxygen (like mixing and slowly applying it) Some times it is good to be bad at some things!
Problem: Mechanical Design - A flaw in the design was noticed when attempting to rotate the medication disk within its housing since ball bearings were place only on the floor of the disk . There was significant friction when the disk touched the walls of the outer casing.
Solution: Since outer and inner walls of the medication disk were too thin to accommodate ball bearings it was decided to attach the disk to a center axle to keep the medication disk from touching the outer or inner walls. This meant the motor could not be housed within the disk and therefore the motor was placed under the disk. This proved to provide better aesthetics and functionality since our AMD was now elevated on one end.
Problem: Attaching a laser cut acrylic gear to a stepper motor with a round smooth axle.
Solution: Luckily for us there is place called “Hobby Town USA”. We were able to get advice on how to grind down the stainless steel shaft so that it has a flat edge on one side using a simple hand held Dremel tool. We then obtained a sprocket and attached to our gear and the motor shaft using pins and epoxy glue.
Problem: Electronics - Everything was working fine until something fried something and our linear regulator stooped working.
Solution: Not sure what happened here. Maybe a solder connection leaked over. We had to redo our connections and replace some components. Everything can be fixed except for lost time and missed opportunities.
