A Few Design Changes

As of last weekend, we thought we had finished our final drawing of our device. We labeled the components, decided on final dimensions, and even color-coded the drawing. But alas, after reflecting on the drawing, we decided there were two things we definitely needed to change: the size and the doctor-controlled portion. The goal of these changes is to make our device more realistic and usable.

In our initial design, we began the process of deciding dimensions by examining the size of a pill. We researched the average size of pain medication, found the volume of a pill, and multiplied this number by 200. (In this initial design, we figured that one dose would equal 200 pills). We used this number to formulate dimensions for the area of the device that holds pill. There are several problems with this method, we have discovered. First off, we cannot just assume that one dose equals one pill. Such an assumption would make our device highly unrealistic in the real world: what if the doctor prescribes the patient to take two pills per dose? Our device could not accommodate any dosage beyond one pill (if it needs to accommodate 200 total doses, as the directions of the project indicate). Therefore, we decided that our device should be expanded to hold 400 pills. We decided on the number 400 because most pain medications rarely require the patient to take more than two pills at a time. A second change we made to the dimensions revolves around the size of the individual pill. Our original dimensions used the average size of pain medication to determine dimensions. But what if the pill the patient needs to take is larger than average? Our device would no longer be applicable. Therefore, we decided that we should research the largest size of pain medication, and use that number to form the dimensions. Now our device can accommodate any type of pain medication, which makes it much more realistic. One negative to our new dimensions (the original dimensions were 13 cm by 8 cm by 5 cm, and our new dimensions are 17 cm by 11 cm by 9 cm) is that our device is much larger and bulkier. We tried to compensate for this by adding a small handle to the top of the device, in order to make the device easier to handle for patients.

The second change we made to our device deals with refilling. Initially, we had thought there would be a separate place for the doctor to be fingerprinted, and then he or she could add in as many pills as needed. There are several problems with this idea. First of all, a pharmacist would most likely be dealing with refills—not a doctor. Secondly, how does the pharmacist or doctor communicate to the device how many pills the patient may take? Without such programming, there is basically no purpose to our security and lock-out system. To fix these problems, we first decided to add a small keyboard to the back of our device. The keyboard would allow the pharmacist to input how many doses a patient can take. That way, the device knows when it needs to lock the patient out. However, now we have decided that a separate keyboard does not need to be added. Instead, when someone needs to use the device (either the patient or the pharmacist), a screen will appear (on our touch screen area) asking with the user wants to request a pill or a refill. Depending on which action is chosen, the device will recognize one of two fingerprints. If the “request a pill” function is picked, the device will recognize only the patient’s fingerprint. Similarly, if the “request a refill” button is picked, the device will only recognize the pharmacist’s fingerprint. This could potentially be problematic, because the patient would need to see the same pharmacist every time he or she needs a refill in order for this idea to work. We may need to formulate a better plan. But either way, we now know that we will be dealing with a pharmacist now instead of a doctor, and we know we need a way to program the amount of doses the patients needs.

One other small change we made was to lower the age limit on our device. Initially, we decided that our device should be limited to those ages 14 and over, but there is really no reason to exclude those younger. The beauty of our device is that it is impossible to overdose. Therefore, we decided to lower the age limit to 8.

I just made the final design with all the new specifications. As of now, we believe this will be our final design, but more ideas keep seeming to sneak up on us, so perhaps we will make a few more changes in the next few days.