Pill-Shaped
Pill Dispenser

01 — Overview

Project Overview

The shape is a big oval, like an oversized pill lying on its side. On top there's a small screen that shows the time and which day of the week it is. Running through the middle horizontally is a seam: that's where the body opens up when you need to refill the medication inside. At the bottom there's a dispensing door, it swings open downward, like the payload bay of a jet, and the pill drops out into the slot.

Inside are three circular rotor discs, one for morning, one for lunch, one for night. Each disc is divided into seven equal sections, one for each day of the week. When the time comes, the right disc rotates to line up with the bottom door and the dose dispenses. The screen tells you what's happening.

What I'm trying to do

• 3D print the outer oval body with a functioning bottom dispensing door and top screen housing.
• Design and fabricate the three circular rotor discs (morning / lunch / night), each with 7 day-sections.
• Get a small screen and microcontroller running inside to show the time and trigger dispensing.
• Document everything clearly enough that someone else could build one too.

02 — Problem Statement

Problem Statement

I started thinking about this because I had to multiple tablets every day when I was having fevers and kept forgetting them. Not because I didn't care, but because I was usually busy and tended to forget the pills. You walk past it and your brain doesn't register it.

The usual fixes don't really work either. Phone alarms get snoozed and eventually disabled. Existing pill organisers look like something from a hospital supply catalogue. None of them feel like something you'd actually want to own.

Who's it for?

• Older people managing several medications at once — where missing a dose actually matters.
• Anyone on a strict schedule where morning / afternoon / night doses are all different.
• Caregivers who fill a weekly tray for someone else and need it to be obvious when it's been opened.
• Honestly, anyone who just wants something nicer looking on their bedside table.

03 — Concept & Sketch

Concept & Visual Sketch

The shape is an oval,a big pill lying flat. It came from the sketch below. I started drawing it and realised that the body of the dispenser being pill-shaped was almost too obvious, and that meant it was probably right. The hand-drawn version shows the three key parts: the screen at the top, the horizontal seam that splits the body open for refilling, and the dispensing door at the bottom that opens downward to drop the pill out.

Inside there are three circular discs. Each one is a rotor with 7 compartments around the edge, one for each day. The morning disc, the lunch disc, and the night disc each rotate independently. When it's time for a dose, the right disc spins to align its current day-compartment with the opening at the bottom, and the door swings open.

The dispensing door is the part I'm most uncertain about mechanically. It needs to open cleanly without the pill bouncing off and rolling away, and close firmly enough that nothing spills if you tilt the device. Still figuring out the hinge and latch geometry — that'll probably take a few print iterations to get right.

04 — Components

Possible Components

This is still a work in progress, so some of these are confirmed and some are "I think this will work." I've tried to be honest about which is which.

Mechanical & Structural

Electronics

Software & Firmware

08 — Firmware

Firmware & Programming

I'm using MicroPython — partly because I know it from the assignments, and partly because I can actually read it the next morning without needing comments on every line. The basic loop is pretty simple:

1. Wake up — the RTC pulls a pin low when an alarm fires, which wakes the ESP32.
2. Check what time it is — ask the DS3231 over I²C.
3. Is it dose time? — compare against the schedule saved in flash.
4. If yes, alert — LEDs animate, buzzer beeps for about 30 seconds.
5. Wait for acknowledgement — a button press, or it times out on its own.
6. Go back to sleep — set the next alarm, kill everything, deep sleep.

How the code is split up

LED colours

• Green — you took it, all good.
• Amber (pulsing) — it's time right now.
• Red — it's been over an hour, you missed it.
• Dim white — nothing happening, just waiting.

09 — 3D Design

3D Design in Fusion 360

This was the first proper piece of work I did for the final project. I used Fusion 360 to model both halves of the shell and the internal tray system — it's parametric so I can adjust things like wall thickness or how many trays it holds without redoing everything.

I hadn't used Fusion much before this course. It's a lot more capable than I expected — and a lot more confusing to start with. The CAM and PCB tools I haven't touched yet, but the solid modelling workflow makes sense once you get used to the timeline at the bottom.

You can download it from the Autodesk website — it's free for students.

What I actually did

• Modelled the oval body as a single solid, then cut it along the horizontal seam plane to create the two halves.
• Added the screen recess on the top face and the door opening on the bottom face as cut extrusions.
• The three rotor discs were modelled as cylinders with 7 equal wedge-cuts to create the compartments.
• Added 1–2° draft angles on the vertical walls so the print doesn't need excessive supports.
• Applied a dark matte plastic material — the render came out looking almost exactly like the hand-drawn sketch, which felt satisfying.

Here's the final model:

Rendering

I went into Scene Settings, picked a background from the Environment Library, then hit the In-Canvas Render button. It takes a few minutes but the result is much better than a screenshot of the grey model.

Saved it with the Capture Image tool in the toolbar.

10 — Animation

Product Animation in Blender

Once the Fusion model was done, I exported it as FBX and brought it into Blender. I hadn't used Blender seriously before this, and it is a lot. The interface is not exactly welcoming. But the Cycles renderer makes things look genuinely good once you figure out what you're doing.

What's in the animation

• A slow camera orbit around the closed capsule so you can see the shape from all sides.
• A twist-and-open sequence — the two halves rotate and separate.
• An exploded view pulling the inner trays apart so you can see how they stack.
• Studio lighting with ambient occlusion — trying to make it look like a product photo rather than a 3D render.

Here's the final render:

11 — Timeline

Project Timeline & Progress

Where things are right now. I'll keep updating this as I go.

12 — Future Work

Future Improvements

Things I'd like to add eventually, once the basic version actually works.

13 — References

References & Acknowledgements