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Carolyn’s Status Report for 4/25/26

This week, I finished up the basic design, cutting, and assembly of the pill box. I designed the base attachment to the collection tray and printed it out.  Most of my time this week was focused on getting ready for the final presentation.  I collected testing data and synthesized the work we had done into slides and a script to share.

I think we are mostly on schedule, except for the integration of the software and electrical components.  We are planning to finalize that this weekend.  Then, do our remaining testing, which shouldn’t take too long.  In the next week, I hope to help finish the integration of the electrical and software.

Tests (both unit and overall) that have been/being accomplished: individual testing for motion sensor accuracy, weight sensor accuracy, timing accuracy when tracking which compartment to go to, web-app sending/storing the data that needs to be sent to the hardware end, the push-to-open accuracy/strength required, number of pills collected correctly, timing/day tracking on the software end being fully accurate, and overall run-through of the entire system working on a mock setup schedule. So far, the motion sensor + weight sensor accuracy isn’t very high (ranging from 40-70% depending on the number of servos in use, with an average of around 60%). The timing/tracking is still being tested as different power sources/pin arrangements are done during the debugging process. Push to open currently has around 7-8 on a scale of 10 for difficulty, something which needs to be adjusted down. The software end still needs to be fully tested with integration with the mechanical/hardware, which will be done in the coming days.

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Carolyn’s Status Report 4/4/26

After making our prototype pill box, I realized that I had not sized the pill box compartments correctly.  So I had to redesign the compartments.  I now have them as trapezoids, which will allow the space to be used more effectively than squares.  Furthermore, I have been working on the push to open, so I can install them soon.

Our progress is a bit behind due to the parts we delayed.  Not having all the acrylic made it especially hard for me to finish the physical pill box.

In the next week, I should have the new compartments finished and added to the pill box.  As well as finish up the CAD designs of the funnels for each pill compartment.

For my portion of the project, there are two main things I will need to verify.  I will verify that the compartments do indeed hold up to a 30-day supply, 3 times a day, of any pill type.  I will verify this by ordering empty pill capsules online and filling them into the compartments.  I will use the largest pill size for the test to make sure the compartments will hold any pill size.  If the compartments can’t close with 90 pills of the largest pill size without damaging any of the pills, they will not pass the test.

Next, I will verify that all the user access doors can be accessed in 30 seconds or less.   I will have to install the push-to-open on each of the doors before I do this. This will ensure that all the access doors can be used by someone with dexterity issues easily.  I will have someone time me opening each door for 5 trials.  I will need to open each door within 30 seconds at least 4 out of the 5 trials.

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Carolyn’s Status Report 3/7/26

This week, I focused on refining the mechanical dispensing system and updating several core design elements.  I fleshed out our sliding door feature on the pill box.  I came to two possible solutions that will be most reliable lead screw + nut design and timing belt design.  After reevaluating our sliding door feature I wanted to pivot away from casing on average pill size.  Originally we did this so a specific sliding door knew how much to retract based on the pill size contained in the compartment.  Yet it would not account for all the possible pill sizes negating our use case, as well as I believe not being much more accurate as there is still variation in the pill sizes in each size group.  Instead I proposed pulsing would be better fit for handling all the different pill sizes accurately.

Since we had gotten rid of the average pill size casing we now needed to accommodate all possible pill sizes, so the pill box size needed to be adjusted accordingly.  An additional constraint that I added based on the feedback of the professors was to limit the size of the pill box based on the size of pill boxed currently on the market.  The most valuable space that our pill box would take up is table top space, so I specifically limited the width of the box on the table based on market research.

Another piece of feedback we received was to account for humidity causing pills to stick together, to counteract this I added airtight compartments and silica gel packets in each compartment to the design.

Based on the design updates we made I updated the individual tasks in our schedule.

I also made our parts list along with specific vendor links.

Using the constraints on pill box size identified above I conducted a design trade study to identify the ideal height of the pill box.  Illustrated in the graph below.

Finally for our design report I was responsible for writing the quantitative design requirements, design trade studies and project management sections.  I reviewed and edited my partners sections before the final submission.

We are on schedule for everything except ordering parts.  Now that I have accumulated the parts list I will start putting in the orders soon.

In the upcoming week I hope to make prototypes of each of the sliding door designs to identify the best solution to implement in our pill box.

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Carolyn’s Status Report for 2/21/26

I have been working to update our design based on the feedback we have received from our design presentation.  We need to figure out how the user will reset the device when there is a misdropping of a dose.  I will continue working through this with our TA and prof during our upcoming meeting.  For now, we will set an alarm in the app if a dosage was dropped incorectly which will instruct the user to take the dose out of the tray for it to be readministered.  I also made a diagram of our proposed pill box design.

We are mostly on schedule.  Yet we are a bit behind schedule for ordering the parts our project will need.  I didn’t realize how much we would tweak our plan after every meeting and presentation, so the exact parts we need have been continuously changing.

Next week, I plan to make updates to the laser-cutting file design for the box and print it out.  So we can have the physical pieces as soon as possible.  As well as finalize parts lists and put in orders.

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Carolyn’s Status Report for 2/14/26

This week, my primary task was to update the design of our pill box based on the feedback we received from our TA and professor.  The opening mechanism of the compartments was improved upon with push to open, as well as the compartments themselves. In our original design, we realized that the last pills would not have been dispensed if they were sitting in a corner of the area.  I have updated the design to form each compartment in a way that forces all pills to be dispensed, with a funnel-like shape.  Additioanlly we are adjusting the size of each pill compartment to fit a 90-day supply of the largest average pill size we are accommodating.  I redrew our design based on these specs, as well as updating the tasks we will have to accomplish for the new design and our Gantt chart.

We are currently on schedule with the project timeline.  We updated our design plan based on feedback from our professor.  After our design presentation, we will receive plenty of feedback, using that, hopefully, we will make final adjustments and start implementing strongly.

Next week, I plan to draw the laser-cutting file design for the box and start printing it out.  I want to have the physical peieces are soon as possible so see if the design needs to be iterated.

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Carolyn’s Status Report for 2/7/26

This week my primary task was to gather our ideas to prepare for the testing, tasks and schedual part of our proposal.  I refined the testing ideas/metrics  I made in our abstarct.  They needed to be usedated based on the feeback we recieveved on our MVP from Theophilus and Amelia.  The updates MVP also changed what was most important we test for.  Furthermore I worked with my teamates to figure out a task breakdown that worked for us given our skills.  Then I detailed the indiculas steps we each should be taking for our project and created a Gannt chart.  Then I worked to create a list of items we will need.  The most expensive of which was the FPGA which we need to configure to control all the gate motors we will use.  Since FPGAs cost so much I knew it would be better if we could borrow one from the inventory, so I filled out an inventory item request form.

We  are on scheduale, after much iteration with Theophilus we have gotten to a place where our defined MVP is satisfactory and well alligned to our use case.  Our inventory request was also processed and so we have the FPGA we need.

In the next week I mainly want to work on finializing our parts list.  Doing so will force me to account fo everything we need so we are adequaltly prepared.  Additioanlly I want to start CADing our pill box design.  As I know mechanical design is often very time consuming since prototypes need to be created to testing things out, this is not a task that can be pushed to later.