MediReady: Helping build thoughtful medication habits in college settings
As part of the University of Pittsburgh course, ENGR 0716: the Art of Making, our team identified a lack of consistent medication-taking habits in college students. Finding most students took medication both at home and on the go, we developed a dual-platform system to to address this need.
Relevant skills: human centered design and user outreach, Arduino microcontrollers, Solidworks
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Based on surveys that reached over 70 people and interviews with experts in the medicinal field, we found over 60% of people will miss at least one dose for every ten they are prescribed. Looking into current solutions, we found a dichotomy between affordable but unable to remind users (such as a generic day-of-the-week pill case) and inaccessibly expensive but effective (the Livi automatic pill dispenser, retailing at about $2000). We set goals of our solution being portable, inexpensive and able to differentiate between at least two medications.
From there, MediReady was born. It uses an Arduino microcontroller to trigger flashing lights and a brief melody at pre-programmed intervals in both portable and stationary forms.
If the system detects the removal of the weight of one pill using a Velostat pressure sensor, the notifications cease.
Ultimately, our projected cost was $35, fulfilling our criteria of inexpensiveness. The combination of Velostat pressure sensor and Arduino microcontroller was able to detect a difference in weight small enough to distinguish between medications. However, our goal of portability could not be achieved in our time frame. This project helped us learn about not making assumptions about users and that our experiences as people who take medicine are not universal to all people who take medicine. We hope to revisit this project in the future!