Original post from David Richards / Facebook (Jan. 4, 2020)
“For anyone who isn’t on Tiktok, I wanted to share a story.
1 week ago, a Tiktok user with Parkinson’s posted a video expressing anger over how tiny the pills for treating Parkinson’s are because it makes them really difficult to pick up when someone has something like, you know, Parkinson’s.
4 days ago a guy who directs country music videos for a living, and was previously most famous on Tiktok for knowing obscure facts about Snapple, taught himself how to use Fusion 360 (a design and modeling tool) so he could design a pill bottle that solves the problem.
Problem was though that he didn’t own a 3D printer so he posted a video of his design and offered to share schematics with anyone who wanted to get it and or improve upon it. All schematics are open source.
3 days ago, dozens of engineers and 3D printer enthusiasts had begun working on the project and started refining and tweaking to get tolerances where they needed to be and ensuring that it actually met the needs of those it was being designed for.
13 hours ago, there is a working prototype, it has “less plastic than your average McDonald’s toy, and should be priced as such”. The original designer has gotten a patent attorney to ensure it remains open source and the patent itself will be donated to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
In the mean time, for anytime who needs one now and doesn’t want to wait until the manufacturing in scale beings, they can get one at cost from the engineers printing them at home.”
Source for pill box.
