Med Match

Inspiration

Med Match was inspired by the growing crisis of counterfeit and drug-laced pills and the number of people who unknowingly consume them. Many counterfeit pills are made to look identical to legitimate medication which makes them difficult to identify by appearance alone. We wanted to create a simple and accessible way for people to verify what they're taking before it becomes life-threatening.

What it does

Also, Med Match uses spectroscopy to scan a pill and capture its chemical composition. Then, it compares the scan against an automatically generated database of known medications and compounds to identify the pill and detect harmful opioids or other harmful substances.

How we built it

Furthermore, we built the prototype using an ESP32-CAM integrated with a spectroscopy setup that sends scan data to our analysis software, where it is processed and compared against the database. By dividing the work between hardware, software, and database development, we were able to build a functional prototype.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges we faced was getting consistent scan results because of small changes in lighting and pill placement affected the spectroscopy readings. We also spent time generating and organizing the database while debugging communication between the hardware and software.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Despite these challenges, we successfully developed a working system that could scan pills, compare them against a database, and identify potentially dangerous substances within a very limited timeframe.

What we learned

Throughout the project, we learned how spectroscopy can be applied to chemical identification, how important data quality is for accurate analysis, and how quickly a complete hardware and software system can be developed through teamwork.

What's next for Med Match

We plan to expand the database with more prescription medications, counterfeit pills, and illicit substances, improve the accuracy of the analysis using machine learning, and develop a smaller, portable version of Med Match.