Wheely Good Dispenser

A medicine dispenser created to help seniors take their medication and remain independent. A caretaker can fill many days of medication in advance, while the device handles the tasks of alerting the user and delivering their medications.

The idea for this project was born from some of my personal needs. My family takes care of my grandmother who lives independently, and cannot afford to live in a nursing home. She struggles to take her medicines at the correct time of day, and my family relies of current dispensers to help her. These current solutions leave much to be desired in both price, reliability, and efficacy. This isn't an issue that my family is alone in facing. Many people have no choice but to live independently, often leading to a poorer quality of life as they're forced to spend more for these flawed solutions lest they risk a discrepancy in their medication regiment. My group sought to create a reliable and low cost alternative so that more people could have access to a device that helps them stay independent.

Our solution uses a magnetically actuated carousel that rotates to dispense pills into a retrieval cup. As the carousel rotates, magnets attached to each receptacle are attracted to a static magnet, actuating the release of pills through the front of the device. This process avoids many of the pitfalls of existing solutions by decreasing the importance of physical tolerances which severely impact the consistency of many mechanically actuated solutions. By using magnets, we rely not on the interaction between static levers and moving wedges, but instead relying on the magnetic downforce exerted on levers as they pass the static magnet to actuate each lever.

This device was created to tackle the theme of Health present in the Grand Challenges of Engineering. In addition, I plan to iterate further on this project and submit it for the Dyson award.