Team Project

By: Noor Elahi, Mengchen Zhang,

Tiago Cordeiro, Dilshad Khatri

2/16/15

ENG-1102 SECTION-N

Tutorial 1

Dear Sir,

The report you requested on Design Proposal is included in this file. This

report explains the need of our product in todays world as well as it provides

information about the design process.

After careful consideration we came to a conclusion that the best way to deliver

medicines to the elderly is through an aerial vehicle such as a drone. The drone

will be able to travel faster than any land vehicle and accurately reach its

destination using a GPS guided system. One of the risk of this type of delivery

system is that the medication can be stolen if the Drone is either shot down or it

malfunctions. The advantages and disadvantages are further elaborated in the

report.

Please email me or any of my team members if you have any questions regarding

the report.

Thank you.

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GROUP 2

SECTION N

TUTORIAL 1

TEAM MEMBERS: Dilshad Khatri

Mengchen Zhang

Noor Elahi

Tiago Cordeiro

DESIGN PROPOSAL REPORT

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Contents page Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 3

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4

Background of the Targeted User and Age Group ........................................................................................ 5

Needs assessment ......................................................................................................................................... 6

Problem Formulation .................................................................................................................................... 7

Initial Concepts ............................................................................................................................................. 9

Smart Lockbox: .......................................................................................................................................... 9

Remote Delivery System: .......................................................................................................................... 9

Tunnel Delivery: ........................................................................................................................................ 9

Selected Idea ............................................................................................................................................... 10

Concluding Remarks.................................................................................................................................... 11

Appendices .................................................................................................................................................. 12

Appendix A Contribution by each member ......................................................................................... 12

Appendix B - Personas ............................................................................................................................ 13

Appendix C - Pair-wise comparison chart: .............................................................................................. 16

Appendix D Objective tree diagram. .................................................................................................... 17

Figure 1 ......................................................................................................................................................... 7

Figure 2 ....................................................................................................................................................... 16

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Abstract The needs of the elderly population is often overlooked over those of younger generations. It is true that many old age people, who live dependent on some kind of medication, live without any form of supervision, including those who are physically impaired. In an attempt to design a service/product to overcome traditional medication delivery, doing so in, not only a fast and reliable, but accessible and affordable way; the remote delivery drone concept was created. By having a GPS coordinated airborne drone conducting the task of medication delivery, several issues such as traffic and inclement weather can be avoided or greatly lessened. Furthermore, the design in question would use light alloys and an efficient battery to enable it to go fast and do so efficiently. Further design options include a housing unit with a local cooling system to carry medication sensitive to temperature change.

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Introduction According to birth rate and death rate data from World Bank1, the death rate in Canada

is increasing, and the birth rate is decreasing. About a decade ago, when the birth rate

increasing dramatically, the government focus on daycare and education for children. In

our situation now, the death rate is over birth rate, and the government havent provide

effective special care for seniors. Seniors especially for seniors live alone have potential

problems that will cause serious problems or even leading to death. Seniors as part of our

population, should receive special care. Special care for seniors can be provided by

government, local community, and private stores. Government can build more senior

homes for seniors, local community can provide senior services, and private stores can

use latest technology to serve seniors. Both government funded senior homes and local

community service require large amount capital cost, and the return value is negligible.

The special care provided by private stores requires small amount of capital cost, and

private stores can make profit on it.

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Background of the Targeted User and Age Group

In today's society most of the people prefer to live as nuclear family; a lot of people prefer to live on their own as soon as they reach a mature age or have finances to settle on their own. This leaves their parents to be left alone and have to look after themselves; it works fine until they get old and reach ages of 61 or higher. At that point of life time their health starts to deteriorate and a lot of health problems start to occur which can leave old age people feeling helpless and needy. Similarly disabled people can feel helpless and stressed out when they can't even get their medication from pharmacy. Our design project is meant to help old age, disabled people and people in needy conditions such as snow storms, heavy rainfall, etc. It's the people in age group of 61-75 years who are most vulnerable to natural disasters because there are times when emergencies services can't reach to them. Especially if they are disabled and require certain medication (for example medication for an asthma attack) an ambulance might not be able to reach the person in need. In such circumstances and in day to day life our design product can satisfy our targeted user need and help them survive in crucial times.

Depending on where the old age people are living they might or might not be getting assistance by their government. In Canada for example there are lots of services provided to senior to help them in many different ways. Such services include assisted living, Canada Pension Plan Retirement Pension, home adaption for seniors' independence and much more [1]. However all of these services require significant finances and man power to assist old age people. Similarly for disabled people Canada provides financial assistance [2]. Our design product and services provide lifesaving supplies such as medication; it can be on day to day basis or be used in harsh weather condition during which even emergency services might not be able to reach.

Our target focus on old age people (61-75 years), disabled people, and people who are

unable to get required lifesaving supplies due to hard weather condition. Old age people,

disabled people now won't have to be dependent on other for their medication deliver as our

design product will serve them in cheap, reliable manner.

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Needs assessment

In order to make life easier and comfortable of our targeted group our design product has to have certain specific goals, objectives, constrains and functions.

The main purpose and goal of our product is to transfer medication and emergency material from point A to point B (For example from pharmacy to user's house).

For objectives it should be easy to use, must be cheap, reliable and durable. Since we are targeting old, disabled and people stuck in hard weather condition our design product must be easy to use so the customer doesn't have to think too and can get required medication with ease. Our product will be fully automated and the use will only have to worry about scanning his/her prescription and taking their medication.

Old age or disabled people might not have the luxury for expensive means for delivery of their medications on weekly or monthly basis, therefore our product will provide them with onetime payment cheap solution. It will not only save them money but prevent physical strain of going out and buying it themselves from pharmacy. Moreover it will save them money that might have been spent on car fuel as our product will be solar powered.

Since our product might have to serve in hard weather condition and act as emergency device we can assure that it is reliable and durable. It will be light and powerful enough to travel through high winds and will be waterproof to prevent any rain or snow damage.

Main challenges that we will face are harsh weather condition, security of the package being delivered and the battery life of our product. Our product will be travelling in open so weather conditions can make it difficult for our product to deliver to the user in harsh snow storm, rain or even severe weather conditions. Security constrain was also one of our main concern as we want the package being delivered from point A to B in safe and secure manner. It shouldn't be accessed by anyone other than the user himself/herself and the authorized pharmacy personnel. And finally it should have great battery life that should last long enough for it to make a trip back and forth from the user to pharmacy.

By analyzing the needs and constrains we came up with key function that our design product must have. It will be able to detect the amount of stock the user current has and when the stock is low it will notify the user and the pharmacy for more medication if needed. The user can choose to give permission to the pharmacy to send the medication whenever its low or choose to request it as per his/her need on an ongoing basis. Next our product with use latest technology that will provide centimeters of accuracy so the product is delivered to the right location and doesn't cause any delays.

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Problem Formulation

Figure 1

Recently research found that the birth rate is decreasing while the death rate is increasing, so seniors have higher percentage than before. Majority of seniors live by themselves, and their children leave them when they attend higher education or start a career. We have more seniors in rural areas than urban. When their husband or wife passed away, their lonely life can cause serious problems. Therefore, seniors live by themselves need special care. In this society, we have public service for children and adults, but for seniors, we dont have convenience public service for seniors. Senior homes are limited in urban, and this can only serve to small group of qualified seniors. Considering about large group of seniors in rural areas, this public serve cannot serve all the seniors. Generally speaking, our society need to provide special care for seniors especially for seniors live alone. The special care service can be provided by government, clinic, and pharmacy as well. More senior homes can be proved and built by government funding. A network can be

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built by clinic with local pharmacy stores, so clients information can be transferred wirelessly in between each other, and senior clients dont have to travel to drop it off. On pharmacy side, remote control delivery service can be provided for seniors who dont have good physical condition. The desired state is that seniors can receive special care. Government funded senior homes will take time to plan and build, the application for senior home will also take time to process, and the qualification cannot serve all seniors as a whole. Therefore, this functional solution is a long term strategy. The network in between clinic and local pharmacy require large amount of fund from government or private sectors, it may face problems caused by money issue. If these two functional solution failed, seniors can still receive extra care by encourage their children to provide extra care for them. Seniors can also choose to live with other seniors, so they can take care on each other. More specifically, they can trade their house for apartment. There extra care methods are short term strategy which did not have large amount of capital cost and production workers involved. These can be used before the long term strategy launched.

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Initial Concepts

Smart Lockbox:

Foregoing the need to transport medication between pharmacies and customers houses, the lockbox concept was created. By having a high capacity, programmable lockbox in the customers house, many hindrances of having a traditional delivery system are avoided. The pharmacy in charge would be able to keep track of the contents in the lockbox itself and make them available as necessary to the customer, essentially reducing the need of house to house delivery as often. The constraints of this concept are that it does not completely fix the need to resupply the medication in a traditional way, it would occupy some room if it were to have a high capacity, and the interaction with the lockbox could prove to be difficult for the target user in question.

Remote Delivery System: The remote delivery system would consist of a GPS coordinated airborne drone capable of transporting medication from the origin point to the customers house in a speedy yet efficient manner. Several constraints of traditional delivery such as dense traffic and inclement weather can be severely reduced by taking the airborne route. Additional features such as an appropriate housing component for the medication is required; a cooling/heating system for the medication to be preserved during summer and winter conditions alike. Possible constraints of the design include fragility and mechanical malfunction of the drone.

Tunnel Delivery:

By having a tunnel system connecting the pharmacy to several customers house, the medication could then be delivered without the need to ever step outside. The obvious constraints of a vehicle delivery are avoided altogether, and with an air pressure system to move the packaged medication in the tunnels, this is both a fast and efficient method. Predicted shortcomings of this concept include the high implementation costs and maintenance costs.

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Selected Idea

The remote delivery system proved to be the most appropriate choice to match the formulated problem statement for a number of reasons. Firstly, it will be easy to use. For the customer, very little, if any, interaction with the drone itself will be necessary, it would simply deliver the package at the customer's doorstep. The drone will be relatively cheap to operate due to its high efficiency compared to a cars fuel efficiency, for example. The drone will be very fast due to its light build and the very nature of airborne traffic, or lack thereof. Weather conditions such as rain and snow can be easily dealt with for as long as the machines internal components are protected. The package compartment will need some form of local cooling/heating to deal with the change in temperature as appropriate since certain medication is sensitive to temperature change. Constraints regarding security will be corrected by having the drone fly high enough. Additionally, should the drone malfunction and crash, the GPS locator would allow for it to be retrieved. As a result, we concluded that this concept is the best way to fulfill the desired goal of delivering important medication to the elderly and/or physically impaired in a fast, reliable, economic and secure way.

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Concluding Remarks

The selected design is expected to provide the user with excellent service. The aerial Drone

design will be fully functional even the most extreme weather conditions and hence fulfilling its

primary purpose of delivering critical medications. By implementing it into the daily lives of the

elderly citizens we will be able to make sure that they have the right medication at the right time

under any condition. This overall concept overcomes that we have set out to solve. The fast speed

of the drone (80-KM/h on average) enables it to cover the distance faster than a car, also, unlike

a car, a drone is not confined to a track on which to travel on.

Although this design concept may seem like a perfect solution to the problem, there are still some

flaws. The number one issue is that this drone will be sharing the airspace with other airliners

and birds. Drone collision with an airliner carrying passengers can lead to catastrophic

consequences. The second issue that will need to be addressed is that the drone will be

vulnerable to gun fire. This way drugs can be stolen from the fallen drone and prescription

narcotics can be abused.

If the above risks can be overcome, this method of delivering drugs can very well help save lives.

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Appendices

Appendix A Contribution by each member.

Tiago Cordeiro:

Abstract

Initial concept

Appendix C

Appendix D

Noor Elahi

Editing

Cover letter

Concluding remarks

Title page

List of contents Mengchen Zhang

Introduction

Problem Formulation Dilshad Khatri

Background

Needs Assessment

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Appendix B - Personas

Persona (Mengchen Zhang)

Catherine: 75 years old, live alone Catherine is 75 years old. She lives in new market, while her children live in Toronto. Her husband passed away several years ago. She has health issues, so she has to visit her doctor regularly, go to clinic for medical check as well. She have to pick up her medicine in local pharmacy more frequently. Everything had to be done by herself. Although her physical condition can allow her to perform visiting clinic and pharmacy regularly now, she worries about several years later when her physical condition cant perform these activities. Moreover, sometimes, it is hard for her to remember everything she has to do on a regular day basis, for example, missing family doctor appointment, forget to pick up her medicine after run out. She really needs special care at her situation. Persona (Tiago Cordeiro)

PICTURE & NAME DETAILS GOAL

This is Robert

Role: Retiree, Diabetes sufferer. Robert has diabetes and, as such, he is dependent on insulin to maintain his wellbeing. Unfortunately, Robert lives by himself and his physical condition does not allow him to drive or go for long walks. He is dependent on his pharmacy to deliver his insulin on a regular basis. Robert worries about being dependent on the pharmacys delivery system to bring him his necessary medication.

Robert wants a more reliable way to have his medication delivered to him.

Reference :{ 1}

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CDRT.IN/countries?order=wbapi_data_value_2012+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-

last&sort=asc

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Persona (Dilshad Khatri)

PICTURE & NAME DETAILS GOAL

[1] Angela(left) and Bobby(right)(busy couples)

Angela is 31 and works as a bank manager from 9:00-5:00 while Bobby is 30 who is a software engineer working from 8:00-4:00. Both have busy schedule throughout the week and can be quite stressful sometimes when deadlines are close by or clients wants last minute changes to their products for Bobby. None of them have time to prepare breakfast in morning so they buy food from fast food restaurants. They usually arrive by 6 PM at home and by the time they have done chores they usually watch TV and/or spend time on internet for entertainment. By 9 PM they are too tired and no one wants to make dinner so they end up ordering food or go out for dinner at a restaurant.

Both have successful lives financially but they live unhealthy life which is harmful in long run. How can they minimize the intake of unhealthy food and make their own food at home? How can busy couples such as Angela and Bobby manage their time right and develop practices that will enhance them to exercise (to maintain health) and make their own food (to avoid unhealthy restaurant or left over food).

Reference: [1]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6Y5vC3m77ts/UK9UK-0WToI/AAAAAAAAD1I/cLfcpADI1x4/s1600/busy-black-married-couple-

Relationship+Advice+For+Busy+Couples.jpg

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Persona (Noor Elahi)

PICTURE & NAME DETAILS GOAL

Ben

Ben lives alone in his apartment. He uses a wheel chair most of the time to move around. The building he lives in is 12 years old and its elevator malfunctions sometimes leaving him stranded on the 5th floor. Ben is unable to keep track of how long his medicine stock will last and he often runs out of his medicines. When this happens he has to wait till the evening for his neighbor to come back from work to take him to a pharmacy.

To introduce a service /product that will automatically refill the medicine stock of the elderly

Reference: http://css.drugwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/old-man-taking-medication-1.jpg

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Appendix C - Pair-wise comparison chart:

Reliability Ease to use Weatherproof Cheap Score

Reliability - 1 1 1 3

Ease to use 0 - 0.5 1 1.5

Weatherproof 0 0.5 - 1 1.5

Cheap 0 0 0 - 0 Figure 2

1: Objective in the row > Objective in the column

0.5: Objective in the row = Objective in the column

0: Objective in the row < Objective in the column

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Appendix D Objective tree diagram.

Make life easier for the elderly and/or

physically impaired people by improving

medication delivery services.

Easy Reliable

Durable

Minimize the

interaction

between the

customer and the

service.

Adaptable to

varying

conditions.

(E.g. weather)

Accurate.

Cheap

Low

maintenance.

Low cost

materials.

Power

Efficient

Punctual.

Weatherproof

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