1. Group 14 RERC Automatic Medication Dispenser Ben Roberts – BME Nicole Riddle – BME Daniel Pierre – EE Kevin Kirby – EE Zac Wingard - ME

2. Faculty Advisor Franz Josef Baudenbacher –Department of Physics & Astronomy Vanderbilt University –Teaches: BME 271 Instrumentation BME 274 BioMEMS

3. RERC on Accessible Medical Instrumentation’s 2005-2006 National Student Design Competition Open to U.S. programs in biomedical and mechanical engineering, industrial design, and related disciplines. Programs receive up to $2000 in reimbursement for design costs. First prize: $1000, Second prize: $750, Third prize: $500. $500 awards also available for registration/travel to present a related paper accepted at a major conference.

4. Problem Statement Design an Accessible Medication Dispensing Device. The device must be automated, and capable of dispensing drugs only to a specific patient, and with patient- specific doses.

5. Aims – Affordable – Dependable – Simple – Safe – Flexible – Scalable

6. Specifications Needs to: –Cut pills into halves or quarters. –Dispense medications. Ideally, it will: –Interpret a container’s bar code –Track medication expiration dates –Remind users to take their medications –Track what medications have already been dispensed

7. Clients Bruce –Born in 1960 –Due to renal failure, he takes a large number of medications daily. Mary - Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1994 at age 59 - Poor eyesight. Sophia -Born in 1970 - Emigrated to the U.S. from Poland in 1987. - Had several small strokes in 2003, and takes heparin as a precautionary measure. - Has limited right arm function

8. The Competition Products by E-pill –Med-Time ($230) –MD.2 ($750) –CompuMed ($1,000) Main Lacking features: –Pill information input –No automatic sorting –No auto pill-cutting –Limited storage

9. Market Potential Target Customer Base: –Elderly or others with large prescription regimens. –Clinical environment with modest dispensing needs Potential Competitive Advantages: –Pill sorting –Expiration Monitoring –Pill chopping –Bar Code Scanning

10. Completed Thus Far 2 Design ideas –Prototype in parallel –Learn pros and cons of each Prototyping –Tray / Razor Blade Array –Conveyor belt Pills in a single file

11. First Design Idea : Tray

12. Second Design Idea: Conveyor Belt

13. Conveyor Belt Cutting System

14. It’s a conveyor belt

15. Pour the pills in

16. Magic at work #1

17. … #2

18. … magic

19. Future Work: The Next Steps Prototyping Round #1: –Which design is best? Conveyor sorting and chopping mechanism Tray molds and razor arrays CCD and Photodiode Control Research –How can we take advantage of photo sensing technology in the conveyor approach?

20. References National Drug Code Directory: http://www.fda.gov/cder/ndc/http://www.fda.gov/cder/ndc/ Wikipedia Article on Stepper Motors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepper_motorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepper_motor E-pill products: http://www.epill.com/dispenser.html