This week our team worked on the physical housing. MM bought supplies, Taylor installed pipes, and Aneesha tested the new design. Aneesha did testing on the dispensing and MM did testing on the software application. Taylor did testing on both the hardware and software systems and spent time designing the new dispense system. Aneesha and MM worked together on testing the load cell on an arduino. The whole team worked on the presentation. The biggest challenge we faced was the load cell amplifier still not working. MM ordered another load cell amplifier, and is still waiting for it to arrive. However, at this point, it may need to be removed from the design entirely. Additionally, pills kept getting stuck in our original funnel design, so we decided to switch to a pipe-shape instead. This fixed our issue, and we have adapted our structure accordingly.
MM Demangone’s Status Report for 4/19/2025
This week I had worked on the load cell amplifier issue by writing code for an arduino and testing the load cell with Aneesha. Unfortunately, this did not work, and we will need to change our design. Additionally, I figured out how to make our web application accessible on Google Chrome by creating a certificate and using wss. I fixed some coding bugs, such as a user’s personal alerts being the only alerts to pop up, sizing across different size screens (phone), and general bugs as they came up. I also went shopping to buy pipes for our project, as we had to do a change in design. Next week, I plan to solve some additional software bugs (overpopulation in google calendar when editing a form, not automatically saving the disposal time, being able to delete a pill). If the load cell amplifier arrives, I can work on that, and hopefully this issue no longer persists. Besides the load cell amplifier dilemma, everything is on track.
I have learned a lot of new tools and skills in this project. I gained familiarity with the RPi, as I have not worked extensively with it. Additionally, it was my first time working with the load cell, load cell amplifier, and speaker. I did learn those skills as well. There were a few software packages and deployment add-ons that I have never used before: celery, celery beat, installing certificates. I learned about all of these tools through the internet, primarily through google search or AI engines. I have links commented throughout the github of the resources that I referred to.
Taylor Koda Status Report 4/19/2025
This week I continued debugging some of the software features like the healthcare provider view. I helped with the hardware components as well. Since the pill dispensing wasn’t the best for pills of the different sizes, I resized the slots in the discs so the right dose would fall out each time and added tubes to help with the jamming. I also made a CAD for 2 fillers for the discs. I am also preparing for the final presentation.
Aneesha Bhattacharjee 4/19/2024
This week I have focused on doing a lot of integrated testing. MM and I were working on the load cell amplifier, which is not working as intended so i shifted my focus on running tests for the pill dispensing functionality. Initially the design was not working for all the pill sizes, so Taylor helped me resize and readjust some of the components so they work for the different pill. I 3D printed a small CAD model that Taylor made to fill two of the smaller discs. After that I have conducted 59 trials for each compartment with the different pill types, which we got from the equation in our design to ensure accurate pill dispensing of >95% . In doing so, I adjusted and stabilized the device as I went. I also added a slide-like structure so the pills fall into a central location. I also did slides for the final presentation and over the next week will continue testing and getting the hardware components ready for presentation and try to get the load cell working.
Taylors status report Apr 12th
This week I helped gather some suplies by making some runs to tech spark. Then I also worked on adding like a healthcare provider view to the web app. Tmr I will finish the healthcare provider view on the web app and also add a walkthrough. So get excited!!! 😊 💊
Team Status Report for 4/12/2025
The most significant risk that could jeopardize the project is the load cell amplifier. Since there is so much noise, we are currently unable to get any good reading (as shown in the picture below). From the research we’ve done, its likely due to the fact that HX711 load cell amplifiers work best for load cells that measure higher weights and that soldering can add to noise since we need a specific type of wire. However, we had to solder the wires because the load cells wires were so fragile, they kept on breaking. Aneesha and MM are looking into other solutions to explore such as force sensors. We decided to replace the battery pack with another buck booster converter to achieve better accuracy on the voltage that we need for a good reading. Additionally, we ordered another pack of SD cards, since we do not have any spares left. Both of these cost less than $40, keeping us under budget. The team will work on testing (accuracy of pills being dispensed, website re-sizing to devices, mobility needed to operate device, etc) as listed in the design report section 7. More specifically, we will pull up the website on a variety of screen sizes and go through the motions of the website to make sure everything is rendering appropriately. We will conduct about 60 dispense trials across a variety of pill sizes and record the accuracy of the dispensing.
MM Demangone’s Status Report for 4/12/2025
I have completed quite a bit over the past two weeks. Last week, I spent time on deploying our website, connecting the RPi and website to the websocket, and refining the communication between the two. I had changed the model to store the servo angle, so our device can alternate between 0 and 180 degrees. I had fixed a bug involving overpopulating the google calendar with pill notification events. This week, I spent a lot of time refining the load cell amplifier code, soldering the load cell amplifier, soldering both of the load cells, and testing out the load cells. Also, after Aneesha had reflashed the SD card, I had set up the SD card with github, dependencies, etc. Unfortunately, the readings off of the load cell amplifier are extremely noisy, and is prolonging the amount of time we expected this task to take. Aneesha and I are both working on fixing this, by exploring other force-measuring devices, as load cell amplifiers with a greater precision measurement will not arrive in time for demo day. Next week, I hope to get a lot of software testing done as well as pill dispensing testing. I will make multiple accounts, edit parts of each account, make sure the correct pill amount is dispensed during this testing. Further detail on all of the steps for how I will conduct this testing is listed in our design report section 7. I have included some of my commits below detailing my work.
https://github.com/tkoda1/Capstone/commit/52153443769970d5b3bec07acddcc8a33940e788
https://github.com/tkoda1/Capstone/commit/8e2f1ede953c83bf4c23725f7553dc5e17deab63
https://github.com/tkoda1/Capstone/commit/9b43286ae90b60116683018f09225a7b4d29f412
Aneesha Bhattacharjee Status Report 4/12/2025
I have been working on fixing and testing the dispensing functionality on the device. To ensure the correct dosage is dispensed, I have adjusted the height of the servos and added more stability to the structure, and I am testing with multiple kinds of pills. I have also been working with MM on the load cell although we are running into issues with measuring an accurate weight as there is too much noise and we need our weights to be very precise. We are continuing to troubleshoot this and we will then add it to our structure. I will also work on updating the dashboard based on the weight sensing. We once again corrupted the SD card on our RPi so I reflashed it and redid some of the servo set up, but this was only a minor setback.
MM Demangone’s Status Report for 3/29/2025
This week I accomplished several main tasks: integrated the speaker into the RPI5, connected websockets across the web app and the RPI5, tested and integrated RPI5 code I wrote in previous weeks, deployed to EC2, and continued to work on the 180 degree servo motor motion with my team. I did fracture my femur and tore my labral, so walking around campus will be difficult as I am on crutches for the next 8 weeks. I am on schedule with all of my tasks. Next week, I will work on preparing for the demo with my team and continue to work with Aneesha and Taylor to physically build our project
Taylor Koda status report March 29th
Status report. This week I worked on a few things. In class I helped with the dispense pill code. Outside of class time I worked on registering the domain pillpopperpro.com and linking to allow for oath and helped MM with the EC2 deplotment. Then I also added days of the week to the pill form and worked on some security for the forms. I also started updating the team calendar for the intern demo. Get excited for the midway demo!