Panama City Beach, Fla. (WMBB) — Local Rutherford High School student Jonathan Walker is a finalist for a national coding contest, through TI 84. The calculator company requires students to come design, code and build their ideas using solely a TI-84 calculator.
Walker created a prescription drug management device that alerts people when it is time throughout the day for them to take their prescription.
“It makes sure that there’s no like unauthorized access,” Walker said. “It also has like a pin function for ID verification. It dispenses pills so it keeps the pills in like a safe and secure storage up until the user needs to ingest it. And then it also has a quiz system to make sure there’s no dietary conflicts.”
The quiz pertaining to dietary conflicts asks questions on topics like pregnancy, and whether or not the person had been drinking alcohol. If a potential mixture of the prescription and the person’s diet could be detrimental, the dosage is not dispensed.
By securely storing the drugs, the device prevents the possibility of a child or animal accidentally ingesting a prescription.
“I saw that this was something that really affected my community as well as the entire US,” Walker said. “So just like seeing that, knowing that I could possibly create an impact on a local level and then a national level, even international, I knew that this was going to be a hard problem so I wanted to try and challenge myself.”
While Walker had the idea of the drug management device in his head for weeks, he said it only took him three to four days to actually assemble the calculator with software needed for the tool.
Walker’s device is now one of five finalists in the national contest. While judges decide the finalists, the public chooses the winner.
To vote for Walker, you can go to ticodescontest.com.
