PharmerC

Android app that scans a drug's label to produce the corresponding drug's side effects

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Inspiration

Last summer, my sister worked at a pharmaceutical company for her Northeastern University co-op. This experience opened her eyes up to the world of pharmacy, especially with respect to consumers. She noticed that many customers do not have strong backgrounds in medicine, and as a result, many of them did not take the medications properly. My sister wanted to help customers better understand their medicine, and that's where we came in!

What it does

Our application scans an image of a pharmaceutical drug label and consequently determines the name of the drug from the text of the label. Using the name of the drug, the application then browses through our database of potentially thousands of drugs to return the corresponding drug's main usage and side effects to the app's screen.

How we built it

We used android studio to create the front end and back end for the application. In order to help scan the label of a pharmaceutical drug, we utilized a google API which contained text recognition algorithms.

Challenges we ran into

Android studio was very annoying to work with, as this platform integrated an abundance of tools in one program, causing the platform to be less user friendly. Furthermore, trying to import an API for using a camera in our application was very difficult to find.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we were able to create our first android application. Also, we overcame every obstacle that could have stopped our progress. We also learned how to properly debug every small problem in an efficient manner. Ultimately, we learned how to walk as a power team.

What we learned

We realized that there are so many ways to learn computer science, and knowledge is not limited to academics and schoolwork. It is mostly about participating in new experiences and projects.

What's next for PharmerC

First, we want to integrate a much larger database that includes all FDA approved drugs into our application. Furthermore, we want to improve our application's user experience and overall professional presentation by developing our front end design skills. We also want to improve character detection accuracy when the camera detects a lot of noise.

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