Automatic Medication Dispenser

Inspiration

Our inspiration for this project was a combination of the Canadian Mental Health Association and my father. My Dad has to take 4 pills every twelve hours. He has a container that has 14 sections to it; each section is for a time when he has to take his medication (it lasts him seven days or a week because he has to take pills twice a day). While this container is good for organisation, it is not good for much else: it relies on his memory, there is a risk of the container popping open, and it is tedious to sort all of the pills into the different sections. We wanted a machine that would do the thinking for the patient, a machine that would make it harder to forget to take the medication. We also thought this would be good for patients with dementia or Alzheimer's because all they would have to know is that if they see medication that has come from their dispenser they can take it. It also prevents people from purposefully or accidentally overdosing. As for the design inspiration, we got that from candy dispensers.

What it does

Our prototype version of the Automatic Medication Dispenser dispenses a pill every thirty seconds. In reality it would dispense them every 12 hours or as per the prescription. When two or fewer pills are left in either tube, an LED that was previously green turns blue; indicating that the medication supply is running low. At this time, the doctor will get a message from Facebook Messenger that the patient's medication is running low. If at least one medication tube is empty, the doctor gets a notification that their patient has run out of medication.

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

What's next for Automatic Medication Dispenser

Further development of the Automatic Medication Dispenser would include having a notification or alarm for every time medication is dispensed (as a reminder for the patient), making the machine tamper-proof, having more than two medication tubes for more than two types of pills, and experimenting with different sizes of pills.

Built With

• messenger
• python
• raspberry-pi