Protect the Pill

Biomedical EngineeringeVOL9

Summer 2015

Brainstorming

• What kinds of things hurt your stomach?

• What might soothe your stomach?

• What are some ways to keep medicine from hurting your stomach?

Digestive System Anatomy

Your Challenge

• Your team will create an “enteric” coating for a pill that can protect it from a simulated acidic environment (stomach).

• You will be provided the Following Materials:– Oil– Sugar– Flour– Corn Starch– Candy (your pill to protect)

Brainstorm

• As a team, take 5 minutes to discuss and decide on an initial recipe for your pill coating

• Write your initial recipe on your worksheet

Build!

• As a team, gather the ingredients (in the correct proportion that you need) and start to mix your coating

• If you need to adjust your recipe, that is ok! Make sure to document what your ending recipe ends up being.

• Coat your pill and be ready to test.

Test!

• Each team should label their cup and bring it up to the front.

• We will test each team’s pill against a control pill (1 Skittle with no coating)

• After 10 minutes, we’ll gather data on which pills worked and what recipes were used

• Write your team’s recipe up on the whiteboard to share with the class

CREATIVE TIME

• While we wait for our test to be finished:

• As a team, come up with a commercial or ad to try to sell your candy coating to manufacturers.

• Your commercial/ad can be in the form of a skit, song, rap, dance, poster, art…or something else creative!

• We’ll share these during our next CREATIVE TIME

Reflect!

• Record the results of your test next to your recipeIs the coating still intact?Does your candy still have it’s color?Has your candy started to dissolve?

• Can anyone see any trends with which coatings survived and what ingredients/fractions were used?

ITERATE!!!

• Based on the results of the first test, let’s try this again!

• This time, you must write down your recipe for your coating and stick to it…no adjustments!

• Coat your candy and be ready to test again!

ITERATE!!!

• Let’s test again!

• While we wait…who wants to share their commercial/ad?

Report Time!

• What did we learn today?

• Why did we test in the Sprite? Why didn’t we have someone swallow our “pill” and see how it lasted?

Today’s Video!

• Now let’s watch how pills are made!

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrAHTmq-DLE