1. Health Make-a-thon Proposal: Programmable Pillbox
Pitch for ECE 445

2. Why: Medicines are complicated
Dad has….
Parkinson’s
Diabetes
High blood pressure
A LOT of medicine
At a LOT of different times
With (/out) food
1x, 2x, 4x a day
Mom keeps track of it all.
I don’t know how to.

3. Why haven’t we? If we can manage to create… Computerized Pre-loaded
Wireless-capable
Time-aware
Screen-embedded
CAT FOOD dispensers
...then why haven’t we done that for people’s medicines yet?

4. $10,000 in grant funding available to make...
A programmable pillbox that:
Alerts patients and caregivers when it’s time to take medicines
Reminds how to take them (with/without food, etc.)
Dispenses the medicines needed for people with mobility issues
Can be easily adjusted when prescriptions change

5. Critical components Scales to your meds Snap together
Color / texture coded
Special requirements OK
Sends timed notices
Phone, watch, etc
Pharmacist-patient - caretaker cooperation Can prompt for refills

6. Requests from dozens of hours of patient interviews:
User customizable prompts: Tell me what I want, when and how I want it
Adding, changing, and removing medicines easily: Pre-packaged doesn’t work when your doctor changes a dose every few days
Medicine-specific guidance: What should be taken before / with / after food, X hours away from another medicine, etc
Work / travel dispensing: For people who have complex medicines and work, prompts to fill their travel dispenser before leaving
(Optional dream world) Off-the-shelf components: If components can be readily bought or 3D printed, they could be used to help pop-up pharmacies in crisis-afflicted locations

7. Rough concept: Interface design & software:
Setting up your schedule and reminders
Special instructions
Alerts to phone, text, calendar?
I can help with this
Physical engineering:
Snap together components to add/remove medicines to the array
Dispensing pills of different sizes/shapes
Electrical engineering:
Connecting software and hardware
Making dispensing happen
Returning a prompt to the software from a dispense-button-press (“I’m taking Excedrin now. Ping me again in 8 hours”)
Alerting if a pill wasn’t taken

8. I have a $10K grant, I need a team
I’m good at:
User centered design
Interface design
User acceptance analysis
Accessibility analysis
Prop making
I’m not good at:
Electrical engineering
Physical engineering
3D printing and manufacturing
Programming and app development
etc...
Please help me make the Health Make-a-thon grant into a reality!