After athlete Jimmy Choi expressed his frustration with how hard it is to take the small Parkinson's pills when his hands are shaky, another TikToker designed something to solve the problem, then the whole community joined in.
#LearningToHelp
When Brian Allridge saw the video, he went to work creating a pill bottle that would release only one pill at a time. Brian, a country music videographer, took it upon himself to learn how to use the 3D program Fusion in order to accomplish this design. He shared his design on the internet so that it could be improved upon, shared, and printed.
#MakerCommunity
Brian didn't have a 3D printer of his own to print the device on to test the bottle, so engineer David Exler stepped in to help. The 3D printing community also got involved in making suggestions and changes to the pill bottle. Choi and others have tested it for accessibility and the bottle is now on version 5.1. The files can be found on
Thingiverse. Exler has set it up so that he will print and send bottles for a $5 donation to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.
#ProceedsGoesToCharity
Allridge also is working on the legal side of things to make sure that if his design gets picked up by mass marketing, the proceeds would go to non-profit organizations. He has also gotten the patent set up so that the pill bottle will remain open source and open to anyone to print or modify.
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