Student Designing a Medication Cooling Rucksack

[ianfrid]

Hi,

I am a 21 year old Industrial Design student from Kent and I'm in my final year of University at Loughborough.

I plan to design and build a Medication Cooling Rucksack which will allow users to travel wherever they like without the worry of having to find a place to refrigerate their medication.

I want to veer away from the traditional "ice packs and cool bag" route, as I understand the ice packs often freeze the medication or do not last particularly long, together with condensation issues.

I plan on designing a visually appealing medium sized rucksack with a lower portion dedicated to the medicine cooler and the top portion storing whatever the user chooses. (Clothes/books etc) The rucksack will have a battery pack which will feed the small refrigeration unit with a selection of solar panels designed into the back allowing the battery to be topped up while outside.

I hope for an embedded power lead which can be plugged into the mains supply/car supply for longer charging periods.

I am currently in the brainstorming stage and require your thoughts/opinions/information.
A few specific questions I have at this stage (sorry for my ignorance :-s)....

- Am I correct in thinking that certain types of diabetes medicine do constantly need to be kept cool? What are the specific names of the meds?

- How big do you think the cooling chamber would need to be? I was planning for around 25cm wide, 15cm tall, 15cm deep? Will this fit the certain types of medication which require refrigeration?

- Is there anything else aside from the cooler which could be useful on a rucksack? Design features, shape of pockets etc?


Again, any thoughts/comments/questions/suggestions are really much appreciated.

Cheers

Ian

 

[sugarless sue]

Sounds like a good idea ,Ian. How about a specially reinforced pocket that can act as a 'sharps' container? Either with removable liner or integrated liner.

 

[ianfrid]

Sugarless sue,

Thanks for the reply.

Any suggestion along these sorts of line is truely appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[mikethebike]

Ian

I can see definate benefits of this type of product for some people.

I have type 1 diabetes and take part in long distance cycling (day events).

I had a look at the insulin manufacturers paperwork for penfill cartridges about storage.
Basically it is to be stored between 2 to 8 C, but is NOT refridgerated in use. Room temp is ok for about 4 weeks - but not above 30 C.

The difficulty I have found is that i need to take insulin with me and there is no ideal place to put it.

I think a cooled compartment or small bag sufficent in size to take 2 pens would be great.

I currently have to either put my insulin pens in a cycling jersey back pocket, where they get very warm,or squash them into a small bag I have under my bike saddle which again can be a problem depending on the weather.

I would not personally want a back pack when cycling; rather a very small bag.
However for your project it would be ideal for someone who went on a long trip away or even type 1 diabetics taking a holiday to the mediterranean who will need somewhere to keep spare insulin cartridges /pens

I think your cooled compartment design could possbly be quite a bit smaller than the sizes in your specification.
Not too sure how the engineering side would work but thats the sort of stuff I do for a living.

Good Luck
Mike

 

[sugarless sue]

As a lot of diabetics are on multiple medications perhaps internal , concealed pockets would also be handy for keeping tablet medication hidden from view.

 

[ianfrid]

Hi Guys, thanks for the time taken to answer these questions.

Any more suggestions are more than welcome....

I am building up a nice collection of ideas to ponder over.