Yimo Bai

I believe that a company’s pricing of a product can greatly determine its success or failure. The first problem we encountered in the previous BPL class, where we ran ‘Globus’ which is a business product simulations, was that although we spent a lot of money on R&D and built the highest quality product in the industry, overpricing resulted in shrinking market share.

In Doppler’s case, I think trade-offs in product design are very important. When you go for the extreme and try to make all aspects of the product the best, it also leads to higher R&D and lead to a vicious circle.

Although the article mentions that company size does not matter, large technology companies often mean higher technological means and more advanced patents. Therefore, I think that the prospects of small companies trying to compete with large companies in mainstream products are not good. Because most of the mainstream technology product markets are already monopolized or oligopolized by large companies, in terms of both technology patents and customer loyalty. In order to avoid failure, it may be possible to start with some innovative products as a breakthrough, which may be easier to get financing and avoid bankruptcy.

In terms of functionality, the box is able to help the elderly distinguish between daytime and nighttime medications. At the corresponding time, the corresponding medication box will open automatically. The alert sound will be played. In the earliest versions, it could only open automatically, not close automatically. With micro servo motor update, now it can close the lip after it has been opened for a certain period of time, to prevent the elderly from taking repeated medication or forgetting to close the lid.

The only way to interact with the machine is to close the lid instead of using buttons. This is very much in line with human behavior and ensures that the elderly do not have difficulty operating the machine.

The small girds is also add in the last revision, this improvement makes the box be convenient for elders who need to take multiple medications at a time. The number of grids also have been added from 25 grids to 30 grids which is a month’s supply. So using these is very convenient as you only need to fill them once every month.

I would like to thank everyone for your help and suggestions on my design this semester. It has been an honor to work with you all, and I wish you all the best in the future.

1 min Video Link:

Tinkercad Video Link:

Tinkercad link: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/jRLGCTLzlNj-medicine-box/editel?sharecode=JT5Dsy6zDOdn4uMm43JGI7bEGKXkRGRqDRdyV0alVl8

Most of the effort in the early stages of product design is spent on value propositions. It is a brainstorming process that goes through a series of problem scenarios to refine the basic features needed for the product, and it is constantly adjusted to customer habits and preferences.

The development of a product is the result of close communication between the R&D team and the customer. This Co-Creation business model ensures that customers are involved in the entire value chain of the product/service offering. For this, the R&D department needs to ensure to be consistently honest and transparent to customers.

I think that this is a relatively new idea, because in the last century, most industries were production-oriented. Due to limited production capacity and low competitive pressure in the industry, production efficiency and versatility were often pursued. But now, with the expansion of production capacity, companies have to pay more attention to consumer demand and satisfaction. In order to stand out from the competition, more consumer-oriented ideas are introduced into product design, so modern products have to evolve for the sake of customer experience.

During Product Evolution, the physical form of a product may change, but the function it performs remains essentially the same. This is because functionality is defined by the real problem. In addition, the shape of the initial prototype is often undesigned, because it seeks to embody functionality. As a result, the initial prototype can even be a simple cube. The shape of the final prototype needs to be aesthetically pleasing to the customer, and the materials used are optimized to reduce production costs.

Agile is a development method for the software development process, it will guide us to complete the project step by step. Agile is really about the project moving into substantial development iterations, where users can quickly see a base version of the product. Agile focuses on rapid market responsiveness and high upfront customer satisfaction. In Forbes’s article, it emphasizes that the teams should focus on satisfying the customer. They are also focused on maximizing shareholder value. But an overemphasis on shareholder value and efficiency often leads to a quality problem, and this efficiency is based on sacrificing planning time. Agile often does not have enough time to complete the empathy step of design thinking.

In Agile, the number of project teams should not be too large. Likewise, in Scrum, the number of people is also limited to 5-10.
There is a high-risk in Agile implementation. Under the absence of proper detailed planning, team members need to communicate in real-time to ensure that their work is connected. And any miscommunication may cause work off from the track. It is very similar to Scrum in this respect, In Scrum, task assignment is a team responsibility, so each member should maintain a constant awareness of the status of the project.

In Agile, requirements change much more frequently than in design thinking. In Agile development, some requirements or problems are unknown early in development, or even do not exist at all. So in Agile development, the early stages of development may not define a problem. During the development process, after one Sprint after another, the problems and customers needs became more and more clear in real-time.

I found the concept of Sprint to be a very worthwhile one, as we had to take one iteration of development and get it done as fast as possible. This means releasing prototypes that implement basic functionality in a short period of time. Then collecting customer feedback, and changing the product development requirements in real time based on that feedback. Changes in Agile should be based on customer satisfaction.

In the second version of the design, I have kept the simple interface as always. This is one of the most critical value proposition of my medicine box, because I believe that no old man would want a complicated operation panel, so the pursuit is also to ensure that the basic functions can be achieved with the most simplified operation.

According to the opinions given by the classmates in the class. In the new version, the motor has also been replaced. It has changed from the original one-way motor to a micro servo motor. The biggest advantage of this motor is that it can rotate clockwise and counterclockwise. In the first version, all lids had to be closed manually by the user. With the help of the micro servo motor, the lid can be closed automatically after a certain period of time. This effectively avoids the problem of elderly people taking repeated medication due to poor memory and not remembering if they have taken medication or not. In addition, closing the medication box in time also prevents dust and airborne water vapor from entering the box and contaminating or moistening the medication.

(For demonstration purpose, I’ve reduced the delay time)

In the 3D model, different colors are used for the morning box and the evening box, so that the medication can be easily refilled according to the box. In addition, a drive shaft has been added to the connection between the lid and the box. The volume of the engine box next to the medicine box has also been expanded. The purpose of this is to ensure that there is enough space to fit the motor, the circuit board, and the battery. Also, to make sure that the speakers would be loud enough to come from the machine. I’ve also left a lot of hollow dots in the mechanical enclosure. This maximizes the sound transmission to ensure that the elderly can clearly hear the reminder to take their medication. In addition, according to Patrick Scerri’s advise, the medication reminder will include family members’ voices that acts as the reminder in addition to the elderly’s favorite music. In my grandmother’s conversation, I found that the reason why she didn’t like the sound of the alarm clock was that the sound of the mechanical alarm clock was very noisy and cold. I believe that family greetings and reminders can bring more warmth and make her more willing to use the machine.

In addition, there are little grids in the box. Each time elders take medicine, they only need to take the medicine in one grid. The advantage of this is that even if they need to take multiple drugs at the same time, they don’t have to worry about making mistakes. It can hold up to 25 days of drug dosage, and many drug cycles are four weeks a course of treatment, so in most cases, it can accommodate a course of medicine amount. And only need to be refilled every 25 days.

My design for my grandmother was a timed medication box.
Coincidentally, on October 19th of this year, my grandmother was admitted to the hospital due to an overdose of medication. She had overdosed on a medication that calms her heartbeat, which caused her heartbeat to become very weak. Although it was later found that her discomfort was caused by high blood pressure and not by overdose. However, this brought the problem of taking medicine back to the forefront.

How did you approach the conversation – what questions did you ask?
After she was discharged from the hospital, I asked her why she was taking that medication so many times on that day. She replied, “I was feeling sick and my chest was painful, so I decided to take more pills to ease the discomfort. I don’t remember how many pills I took.” In addition, according to her, she knew that she only needed to take the pills once a day, but she thought that increasing the dose of the pills would make the discomfort go away faster.
I also asked her how she could tell the difference between her morning and evening medication. She replied, “The fuller box was the night one.” I followed up by asking, “What if the morning pills are full later on?” She went on to answer, “The bigger pellets are for the evening.”
When I asked again if she wanted me to be in charge of reminding her of taking the medications, my grandmother indicated that she could take care of these things on her own.

When I showed her the design, she didn’t know much about circuits, but she wondered if there was a way to set the nighttime reminder for after dinner. Considering the dinner time is dynamic, I asked her usually what time dinner was. She said:”around five or six.”

Is there a real problem or did you identify an inconvenience?
I will say it’s a real problem.
We tried writing notes on the fridge to remind her to take her meds, but she still forgets. Since she doesn’t use a smartphone, she has to rely on a traditional alarm clock. But the commercially available alarm clocks can only remind her of one time of day, and they can’t remind her what medication to take. The other thing is that my grandmother finds the traditional alarm clock too loud, and since she has a heart condition, I don’t want a loud alarm clock to remind her to take her medication. The other problem is that sometimes she has already taken her medication once, but forgets that she took it and goes back to take it again.

What did you learn about your customer and how does it support (or not) your working hypothesis about the value proposition?
In general, she does not read the labels carefully before each medication, and she distinguishes between medications by shape of pills, those features that are not obvious.
This is very much in line with my design hypothesis, because I thought that it would be best if the machine box could distinguish the medications, and she would only have to take them. Moreover, the machine is easy to use and she can use it independently without assistance, which suits her personality perfectly.

What else did you learn that is helping you come up with the next-steps strategy?
Although I have repeatedly told her to take only one pill at a time, I am still surprised to know that she thought that increasing the dose of the pills would make the discomfort go away faster. So in the future I may have to control the amount of medication it dispensed.

How are you revising your solution (if at all) now that you have customer feedback?
To prevent her from taking multiple pills at once, I think I can control the amount of pills it dispensed, for example, only one pill will be reachable each time instead of having her take one pill from all the pills.
Other improvements, as suggested by classmates, will focus on the circuit design of the motor that opens the lid.

Is there a different problem that popped up in your conversations that might help you change tracks?
No particular outstanding issues have been identified with my design direction at this time, the main problem is still focus on taking the right medication at right time.

This time I was designing a machine box to remind my grandmother to take her medication in the morning and at night. It would play music at regular intervals to remind my grandmother to take her medication. It will open the lid in the morning which contains morning pills and open the lid in the evening for the evening pills to avoid my grandmother taking the wrong medicine. In terms of coding of the circuit, there is a basic delay between each action through which a 24-hour cycle is achieved.

Tinkercad link: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/kmAqmnaSwhB-tremendous-hango/editel?sharecode=X2K_2e3T_evLQsDxCO6QHdcybVD4Soze2oW5WJ_JY5A

As my first electronics assignment, each of the three slide-switch control one color of RGB LED respectively, while push-button controls piezo and red LED. After learning some basic coding in the future, I hope to be able to control the color mixing and blink frequency of RGB light.

My brother likes to eat popsicles, but because he eats slowly, he often can’t finish eating before the popsicles melt.

After I tried to feel his happiness of eating popsicles while watching TV. I realized that real problem isn’t that the popsicle melts too fast, it’s that he can’t eat the popsicle leisurely.

So I designed a popsicle base to hold the melted syrup.

The wooden stick of the popsicle can be inserted into the hollow cuboid grip.

The bottom slot is also removeable, so it can convenient clean with no dead angle.

I believe this product designer can help him solve the current problem, so that he can enjoy the whole process of eating popsicles and watching TV more. He no longer need to worry about melted popsicles spilling out elsewhere.