Ubergeeke’s Projects: The PillMetric
After receiving several requests for more information, I thought I’d better explain one of my projects. The PillMetric is a small embedded system that I’m building for a medical research project being conducted by a professor at Portland State University. The design goal was to have a system that measures how often a patient takes his/her medicine.
The basic requirements I was provided were these:
- The system needed to be small enough to fit in a pocket or purse.
- It needed to sense whenever the user opened or closed a compartment.
- It needed to have four separate compartments for medication.
- All open and close events needed to be recorded for future download.
Last requirement first: since USB is damned near everywhere, I decided to use that for the downloads. I’m using the Teensy Arduino board with an Atmel AT90USB162 microprocessor because it has USB capabilities. I’ve chosen off-the-shelf plastic cases for the medication holder. Most, if not all, of the programming will be done in C. I’ve selected Reed switches for the sensors and some scavenged magnets to activate them.
This is a pretty basic system, but it’s the first I’ve ever designed myself, though I’ll admit to a bit of assistance from my mentor. I’ve got a prototype assembled, and the sensors work, but the microprocessor isn’t correctly configured yet.
Stay tuned; I’ll post more information about the project as the implementation continues!
Related posts:
- Two More Projects For The Non-Posing Geek
- Girls & Their Arduinos
- Ubergeeke’s Projects: Open Source Rockets!
- Leah Buechley and LilyPad: Hack What You Wear
- Limor Fried Chats Up Arduino In Latest Wired
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