Extendable Pillbox

Customize your own pillbox based on your prescribed, and then never forget to take your medications.

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Inspiration

It is difficult for many people to take medications on time, especially for our grandparents who are with chronic disease. Taking medications on time is very important. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that non-adherence causes 30 to 50 percent of chronic disease treatment failures and 125,000 deaths per year in this country. So we decided to design and make a pillbox to help people stick to their medication routine. Moreover, everyone has a different medication plan, so we hope to make a more flexible pillbox to suit more people's need.

What it does

  • Show the current time and the time to take the medication on an LCD screen
  • Set alarms for taking medication
  • Adjust clock
  • Extend the number of boxes by attaching extra boxes to the base device
  • Set alarm for each pill container
  • Remind to medication by lighting up a correlated LED and playing a melody
  • Turn off an LED and melody after taking a medication
  • Don't repeat an alarm if take pills in advance

How we built it

Program: Adruino

Prototype:

  • Hardware component: Adruino DUE, LCD screen, RTC sensor, two buttons, speaker, neopixels, acrylic board
  • Process: wiring, solder, laser cut

Challenges we ran into

  • Control 7 different components and make them work together on Arduino
  • Organize the code by using the object-oriented program on Arduino
  • Design interaction of setting and adjusting clock and alarms by using 2 buttons
  • Make the speaker work on Arduino Due board
  • Design extendable containers
  • Make the circuit less messy

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We finish most of the functions we planned and hack many challenges during two days

What we learned

  • Object-oriented program on Arduino
  • Teamwork
  • Using RTC, LCD screen
  • Hardware interaction design

What's next for Extendable Pill Box

  • Add a light sensor within each container to detect if the taking of medication
  • Improve the design of appearance of the pillbox
  • Improve the performance of the program
  • Improve the stability of the software and hardware

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