Pill Pal

With all of the things going on in our busy lives it can often be hard to remember to take your medications. The Pill Pal is an innovative way to keep track of a medication schedule by letting you create individual timers that will remind you when it's time to take your medication.

Lights and beeping noises will quickly alert you when it's time to take more medicine. Once you've taken your medication, simply press the inside button to reset the timer.

To make your own Pill Pal you will need:

-1 Circuit Playground

-Access to Adafruit Coding Website

-Battery Pack & 3 AAA Batteries

-1 Circular Bead Organizer (Hobby Lobby)

-6 colors of Felt

-6 2" Wires (preferably the same colors as your felt)

-3 sets of Snap Clips

Tools: *Be sure to always wear safety equipment and ask for assistance while using power tools!

-Soldering Iron

-Soldering Alloy

-Flux (optional)

-Scissors

-Drill

-Hot Glue Gun

I coded my Circuit Playground using Adafruit Make Code.

-it's easy to set up a free account at https://makecode.adafruit.com

Coding the Lights

Start by choosing the colors of your lights using the "show ring" feature in the LIGHT section.

-Change colors by clicking on the color you want, from the center, and then clicking on any of the surrounding dots (representing the led lights on your circuit playground)

Right Click and duplicate your base light wheel 12 times. Leave 6 as original copies and change the other 6 to each be missing one light, by filling it in with gray.

Stack one original copy and one changed light wheel copy inside a "while <> do" LOOP.

Coding the Timers

Once you've decided an INPUT event place a "set timer" command for each timer inside.

Rename your timers as "Timer 1" through "Timer 6", and set a starting amount of time for each.

-PRO TIP: Adafruit timers work in seconds NOT minutes or hours. Be sure to convert all your time into seconds. Ex. 8 hours = 3600 seconds *Google "hours to seconds converter" if you need any help calculating.

Create 6 forever LOOPS that Ex. "change < timer 1 > by (-1)" and then pause for 1000 ms.

Now go back into your light wheel "while <> do" LOOPS and change them. Ex. "While <=""> do"

Repeat for all individual timers.

Add sound effects

Coding the Buttons

Simply assign each timer a button between A1 and A7

Using the format of "if button [A1] is clicked, set [timer 1] to (original time)" create a button for each timer.

-PRO TIP: Note down which light is connected to which button. This will make it easier to assemble the wiring connections later.

Add sound effect and your done!

WAY TO GO!

Using wire strippers clip each end of your wires and expose some of the bare wire on each end (about 1/4")

Thread the wire through a clasp (break pairs in half and only use one side for each button) and then loop it around a few times.

SAFETY TIP: Be sure to always use safety glasses and have supervision

Roll out some tin foil and balance your button in a pair of plyers.

Put a little glob of metal alloy on the end of your soldering iron and heat the wires up.

Next dip your metal alloy into flux (optional)

-Flux is used for controlling where bonds occur and can help soldering go cleaner

Place your metal alloy over the wire and apply heat with the iron.

Once the alloy begins to melt do your best to shape the liquid alloy into a small dot that covers the exposed wires completely.

Set aside button to cool

Repeat process for all buttons

SAFETY TIP: Use proper permission, handling, and safety equipment around drills

Drill small holes inside each container.

Smooth the edges and then loop the wires through, with the button resting inside the container and the exposed wire end hanging out the bottom

-Be sure to put the wire colors in order of your light colors

Using your noted guide flip your circuit playground upside-down (lights shining into up towards the bottom of the pill organizer) and loop each wire to the proper button on the circuit playground.

PRO TIP: Loop all the wires through their button before beginning the final soldering to ensure you have wiggle room to adjust the placement of the circuit playground.

Connect the battery pack

Trace and cut a piece of white felt, and hot glue it to the bottom of your Pill Pal (leaving a gap for the battery wire to poke through)

Cut out your colorful felt rectangles and hot glue them to the outer edges of each container (one color per container)

Turn on the battery pack & test out the buttons.

-Even if the light is not flashing pressing the button should generate a sound response.

Finally organize your medication (by type of medication) and place each in a container that is set for the correct time.

YOU'RE ALL SET. ENJOY YOUR PILL PAL!