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.

DESIGN PROPOSAL REPORT

TEAM MEMBERS: Dilshad Khatri

Mengchen Zhang
Noor Elahi
GROUP 2
SECTION N
TUTORIAL 1

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Tiago Cordeiro

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 Bank 1, 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

Role: Retiree, Diabetes

sufferer.

This is Robert

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_valuelast&sort=asc

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Persona (Dilshad Khatri)

PICTURE & NAME

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

DETAILS

GOAL

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-coupleRelationship+Advice+For+Busy+Couples.jpg

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Persona (Noor Elahi)

PICTURE & NAME

Ben

Reference:
http://css.drugwatch.com/wpcontent/uploads/old-mantaking-medication-1.jpg

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DETAILS

GOAL

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

Appendix C - Pair-wise comparison chart:

Reliability
Reliability
Ease to use
0
Weatherproof
0
Cheap
0

Ease to use
1
0.5
0

Weatherproof
1
0.5
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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Cheap
1
1
1
-

Score
3
1.5
1.5
0

Appendix D Objective tree diagram.

Make life easier for the elderly and/or
physically impaired people by improving
medication delivery services.

Easy

Reliable

Minimize the
interaction
between the
customer and the
service.

Adaptable to
varying
conditions.

Accurate.

(E.g. weather)

Punctual.

Cheap

Durable

Low
maintenance.

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Weatherproof

Power
Efficient

Low cost
materials.

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