Name ______Teammates______

Digest This!

A surprising amount of design goes into developing pill coatings

and the systems that apply them. Varying the coating’s materials

or thickness can dramatically change a medication’s effect on the body. Biochemical

engineers play an integral role in this process, from developing and testing chemicals for coatings

to designing the complex systems used to mass produce uniformly coated pills.

The Design Challenge

Sarah is an eighth grade student with an extremely sensitive stomach that is irritated by certain foods and many medications. She recently came down with an illness that caused a high fever, among other symptoms. Her mother wants to help fight the fever by giving Sarah some aspirin, but she is afraid that the medicine might cause a stomach ache.

Today you are going to help Sarah by engineering and developing your own “enteric” coating. You will create a recipe for your coating, and then test it by observing its effectiveness in a simulated digestive system. Finally, you will analyze your design and suggest improvements to its design.

Research

Important facts to consider about the digestive system

Enteric vs non-coated pills

Ingredients and their properties:

a) oil c) flour

b) cornstarch d) sugar

Develop…Test…Revise

Constraints: -Each spoonful must be leveled

-The test coated aspirin can measure no more than 1 cm thick

Recipe #1
Number of Spoonfuls / Fraction of recipe / Percent of recipe
Oil
Sugar
Flour
Cornstarch
Totals
Recipe #2
Number of Spoonfuls / Fraction of recipe / Percent of recipe
Oil
Sugar
Flour
Cornstarch
Totals
Recipe #3
Number of Spoonfuls / Fraction of recipe / Percent of recipe
Oil
Sugar
Flour
Cornstarch
Totals
Recipe #4
Number of Spoonfuls / Fraction of recipe / Percent of recipe
Oil
Sugar
Flour
Cornstarch
Totals
Final Recipe
Number of Spoonfuls / Fraction of recipe / Percent of recipe
Oil
Sugar
Flour
Cornstarch
Totals

Final Test and Final Redesign

Make observations on which recipe had the best

results in the test. Do you notice any similarities

in these designs? Create one final recipe using

these observations.

Develop and test the exact final recipe you decided upon.