APPLICATIONS & IMPLICATIONS, PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

Applications & Implications

Project Management

What will it do?

MediBee is a triple-disc automatic pill dispenser that dispenses medication at scheduled times. Three rotating discs, each driven by a stepper motor, hold pills in individual compartments. An ESP32 microcontroller reads and triggers the correct disc to rotate when a dose is due. A web application shows the current time, next dose schedule, and confirmation when a pill has been dispensed. The device runs on a LiPo battery and is designed for daily autonomous operation without user intervention.

Who has done what beforehand?

I searched online and I could find a number of products that is similar to the product I had in mind.

• SmartPill


With the help of the web application with a nice friendly user interface, the doctor can configure up to 4 different pills for each Smartpill Dispenser and will select up to 3 intakes per day for each pill. This allows the doctor to change the dosage remotely whenever is needed without the intervention of the patient itself.

• Karie


The SMART Dispenser is an automatic medication dispenser that organizes, schedules and delivers patient medication with the touch of a button.

What sources will I use?

For design references I browsed Pinterest early on to get a general feel for pill dispenser shapes and enclosure styles before sketching my own. Past Fab Academy final project archives helped me understand how other students handled dispenser mechanisms and system integration, particularly around motor-driven gates and sensor placement.

Component datasheets were essential throughout: XIAO ESP32-S3 wiki from Seeed Studio, along with the 28BYJ-48 stepper with ULN2003 driver, SG90 servo, A1324 Hall sensor, AO3400 MOSFET, SSD1306 OLED, and WS2812B NeoPixel datasheets, sourced from manufacturer PDFs and Seeed/Adafruit product pages depending on the part.

For firmware I relied on Espressif's ESP-IDF programming guide and the Arduino-ESP32 core documentation for LEDC PWM channels, NVS storage, WiFi event handling, mDNS, and SNTP time sync. Library-wise I used Adafruit NeoPixel, Adafruit SSD1306 with Adafruit-GFX, ESPAsyncWebServer, and ArduinoJson documentation.

On the app side, React Native docs covered fetch-based networking, navigation, and Android build setup for the companion app.

I designed the enclosure in Autodesk Fusion 360, the PCB in KiCad, and wrote firmware in Arduino IDE. I also used Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini as AI helpers throughout, for debugging firmware logic, working through the REST API structure, and troubleshooting KiCad schematic issues.

Finally, my own earlier weekly assignments fed directly into this build: electronics design and production, input devices (the Hall sensor work on the ATtiny1624 board), output devices, networking, and interface/application programming all carried over into MediBee's final implementation.

What Will You Design?

• 3D Parts: Three pill disc trays with seven compartments each, enclosure body, lid, motor mounts, and disc retaining rings, designed in Fusion 360 or FreeCAD.
• 2D Parts: Laser-cut acrylic panels for the middle walls.
• PCB: Custom-designed KiCad board featuring an ESP32, ULN2003 motor driver headers, OLED connector..

• Firmware: MicroPython-based scheduling logic with deep sleep between doses, I²C OLED display driver, and stepper motor control sequences.
• Enclosure: A hybrid enclosure combining a 3D-printed shell with laser-cut acrylic panels for a clean, compact, and professional finish.

What materials and components will be used?

Electronics

Fabrication Materials

Where will it come from & How much will they cost?

What Parts and Systems Will Be Made?

Electronic System:
Here, I am making a custom PCB to integrate the ESP32-S3 microcontroller, stepper driver, Hall sensor, solenoid switching circuit, buzzer, and OLED display. This involves designing the schematic in KiCad, milling the board on the Roland Modela MDX-20, and hand-soldering the components.

Mechanical System:
The rotating pill disc mechanism is designed and fabricated using 3D printing. This includes the three pill discs, the enclosure mounting structure, and the servo-actuated slot door and solenoid lock that control dispensing.

Software System:
I have written firmware that handles scheduling, dispensing, and connectivity. This involves programming the ESP32-S3 to track disc position via the Hall sensor, drive the stepper and servo motors, sync time over NTP, persist schedules in NVS, and serve a REST API to the companion app.

Enclosure and Packaging:
The enclosure is designed to house all components securely while maintaining a compact form factor. This involves designing the body and lid via 3D printing, laser-cutting a middle partition to separate the electronics bay from the disc mechanism, and creating mounting points for the PCB, motors, and display.

What processes will be used?

• 2D design: Inkscape, used to draw the middle partition panel that separates the disc mechanism from the electronics bay before laser cutting
• 3D design: Fusion 360, used to model the three pill discs, the enclosure body and lid, and the mounting points for the stepper motor, servo, and PCB
• Additive fabrication: FDM 3D printing, used to print the pill discs and the enclosure body/lid
• Subtractive fabrication: Laser cutting for the acrylic middle partition; PCB milling on the Roland Modela MDX-20 for the custom board
• Electronics design: KiCad, used to draw the schematic and layout the PCB carrying the ESP32-S3, ULN2003 driver, servo header, Hall sensor input, solenoid MOSFET circuit, buzzer, and OLED connector
• Electronics production: Milling the PCB on the MDX-20, hand-soldering components, and continuity/power testing before mounting
• Embedded programming: C++ on the ESP32-S3 via Arduino IDE, covering stepper/servo control, Hall sensor reading, solenoid switching, buzzer alerts, WiFi/REST API, and NVS-based scheduling
• System integration: Assembling the disc, enclosure, and partition, wiring the motors/sensor/solenoid/buzzer/OLED to the PCB, and calibrating firmware against the physical mechanism

What questions need to be answered?

• Will it always drop exactly one pill? Pills come in different shapes and sizes. I need to test the gate and solenoid together — run it 100 times and count how often it drops zero pills, one pill, or two.
• Will the disc stay lined up? Right now a magnet and Hall sensor tell the disc where it is. But small errors could add up over time. Do I need the disc to "find home" before every dispense, or is once at startup enough?
• Will everything run without crashing? Stepper, servo, solenoid, and LED ring all pull power at once. If they draw too much, the board could reset mid-dispense. I may need to run them one at a time instead of together.
• What if WiFi goes down for days? The clock syncs over the internet. Without it, can the device still keep time well enough to dispense on schedule? Plan: save the last known time and count onward from there.
• Can my grandmother use it? Refilling the disc and understanding the lights and beeps should need zero technical knowledge. Only real users can answer this — I'll watch someone try it without instructions.
• What if power cuts mid-dispense? The device must not give a second dose when it restarts. Fix: write "dispense in progress" to memory before moving, and check that note on boot.

How Will It Be Evaluated?

• Successfully dispenses the correct pill at the scheduled time (3 doses per day for 7 days).
• OLED display correctly shows the current time, next scheduled dose, and dispensing confirmation message.
• Custom PCB functions without errors, with all components properly soldered and operational.
• Enclosure is fully assembled using only the fabricated parts, with no off-the-shelf housing.
• Firmware correctly handles missed doses and edge cases, including booting after deep sleep and low battery conditions.
• Device operates independently for at least 3 days on a single battery charge.
• All design files, including KiCad project, STL files, and firmware, are documented and published on the Fab Academy website.
• Individual mastery is demonstrated through independently designing the PCB, writing the firmware, and assembling the complete device.

How it integrates Fab Academy units

Project Development

Presentation Slide

For creating the presentation slide, I used the software Figma.

I used this image as background. Our instructor had provided us with the logos of Fabacademy and Fablab Kerala. I put those in the poster.

Then I added some details about the project. The first version looked like this.

I saved the image as presentation.png in the root folder named 'public'.

Loading presets

I added the Fabacademy preset to the Handbrake software.

Choose the file and click ok.

You can see the Fabacademy preset under the custom presets tab.

Choose it and click 'ok'.

Presentation Video

The presentation video was edited using DaVinci Resolve.

After creating the presentation slide and video, I saved them in the public folder. This automatically uploaded them to the website.