Final Project Report

Project Goals

I originally set to solve something in the medical field because I’ve always wanted to use my knowledge to help others in need. After brainstorming and conjuring up several possible ideas, I ended up scrapping them all due to a multitude of reasons. The most common of them being the complexity and difficulty of realisation and creation, although other external factors such as budget and time constraints also played a role. After I exhausted all other options, I turned to my last resort- my mom. My mom has been working in the medical field for decades and with her expertise, I could extract possible ideas from a perspective of one of my possible clients. With her aid and some surface-level research to see to what extent her ideas have been implemented into society, I had one idea in mind- an automatic pill crusher that would streamline tasks for healthcare workers. This was significant because of the current globalised healthcare worker shortage and by streamlining mundane and repetitive tasks, this could possibly help address that issue.

Here was my finalised problem definition statement:

Problem Definition Statement: Hospitals need a more cost-effective, environmentally friendly, sound-proof, and easy-to-use pill crusher that suits the needs of both hospital staff and patients.

Project Constraints

As outlined in my problem definition statement, the main target demographic will be hospitals and healthcare workers across the globe, both in first and third world countries. We were given time since January 27th, 2025 up until May 5th to have our project fully complete, for a total of 98 days. Other than this time constraint, we had a couple hundred bucks as our budget for the project and task dependencies. For example, I wasn’t able to actually start creating my project using CAD until I had finished completing my prototype on the drawing board.

Project Expectations

When I first pitched this project idea to other Fusion students, I had originally envisioned creating an automatic pill crusher that would work with a push of a button. The prototype was to be physically printed out or created and was to house likely an Arduino system that works the pressure plates, crushing the pills seamlessly without any spillage or causing any other major inconveniences to the user. In essence, I wanted my project to be at bare minimum better than competitors that have already solidified themselves in the pill crusher market around the world.

As outlined in Notion, I defined success by using AI to analyze existing products in the industry to create variables to then rate both my prototype against competitors in the industry.

Some variables such as setup time and ease of operations are projected values for my design. Other variables such as initial and subsequent use cost along with potential time saved are more definitive valuations as I already have a general idea of the cost of the materials along with the details of how the mechanism will work.

Design Choices

Here is my finalised solution on paper:

And here is my finalised solution animated on Onshape:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gd0QEGkUA-ZTho-E-dnxO-IGg7VPo5Q8/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11OCBd59TDNlpM7zAfqPeyhxvaj8RrMO3/view

These videos outline the main mechanical features of my automatic pill crusher.

Project Planning

I used AI to make create my entire planning procedure and it worked pretty seamlessly: https://fabulous-fang-db4.notion.site/AI-Pill-Crusher-Procedure-Design-Brief-1c58ccd40ea1804b8befd7473a74fe75

Bill of Materials and Cost Analysis

As of now, I still haven’t decided on the exact material I’m going to use as I think it will change if I optimise my design. For example, the lack of guardrails in the final design raises questions about structural integrity, which could easily be addressed with the addition of said part. I will need 4 5mm screws along with a screwdriver to lock the butt hinge in, and some Arduino parts like the battery sap, DC motor, wires, button, and battery itself to get the crusher working. Other than that, the only digital resource I used was Onshape, ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek. As for the cost, it shouldn’t exceed $50 per product when manufacturing.

Testing and Validation

Legend:

Bright yellow = Mortar & Pestle Benchmark

Grey = My pill crusher

Magenta = Competitor: Silent Knight

Using the variables that I generated using ChatGPT (see Project Planning for the chat log), I was able to rate my pill crusher with the help of my mom who has worked with the competitor physically. To be honest, some of these valuations on the variables for my pill crusher are still superficial and may not be accurate once my pill crusher is actually printed out. However, if I do keep following my plan, it should be easy to use as the entire system is built on Arduino which shouldn’t be loud, hard to use, and shouldn’t take long to set up. Along with that, costs should be low as Arduino is a very simple program and their parts are on the lower-end, and my design *should* do a decent job at cross-contamination at least compared to my competitor.

Code of Ethics

What ethical implications exist in your problem, solution, and process?  You could think of the use of your solution, the construction of that solution, or perhaps unintended uses of the solution.

As outlined as one of my variables in the spider graph, the plastic use of these pill crushers are decently high and that could cause ethical considerations especially at large-scale use, which this idea is intended for. In addition, some tablets such as extended-release tablets (designed to last longer in your body) could possibly be altered after crushing which could cause potential side effects if not handled properly by a medical professional.

Conclusions and Recommendations:

In the future, I think that I could improve my project by implementing a way to reduce the environmental impact of my pill crusher. Although this was a problem that was addressed at the beginning, I couldn’t really find a way to incorporate a solution to that in my project within the allotted time to finish this project.

If this product is mass produced, this could work really well in environments with low accessibility such as third-world countries which lack the necessary resources to get higher-end medical devices. From the start, this project was tailored for use across the globe, and by creating a more economically friendly solution, this could be potentially used in war zones where patient to hospital staff ratios are off the charts.

References (In APA format)

All my sources that I used were either directly from my mom or were generated from AI, which are all on my Notion: https://fabulous-fang-db4.notion.site/Matthew-Allawigan-Fusion-Personal-Project-1a98ccd40ea1804fb661fef7c297d782

Thanks for bearing with me throughout this year and for viewing my project.