Med Carousel

Abstract

For many patients being able to take medication on time is critical. However, this can be challenging for some, either due to difficulties opening pill bottles or having to keep track of when to take multiple pills. The objective of this project is to design and build Med Carousel, a device that will open pill bottles, sort the pills and dispense them when needed. The mechanism designed is intended to accept input from the user regarding the information about what medicine is about to be opened along with accepting a closed, pharmacy issued, medicine bottle. The mechanism’s opening subsystem will open the bottle and empty its contents. Using a claw arm attached to a ball screw, the device will grab the bottle and bring it up to a servo-connected suction cup that will rotate to open the bottle. The bottle is then turned to pour its contents into a funnel for the storage wheel in the sorting subsystem. The sorting subsystem will store the medicine into storage compartments according to information input from the user. Finally, the dispensing subsystem will dispense the medicine as specified by the user at scheduled times or manually into a tray at the bottom of the device. For the purpose of initial testing, a 13-dram bottle was the size designed for the device. Tic-Tac’s of different colors are used as proxies for the pills. A successful project will be able to accept, store, and dispense the Tic-Tac from a pill bottle.