Many times we are scared to share the things that frustrate us in life. Especially when many other people might consider the frustration to be of no consequence. But should we feel that way? When we share and collaborate, we are able to build and manage things that we couldn’t dream of doing alone.
Recently athlete, advocate and American Ninja Warrior Jimmy Choi shared with the world the issues he has with his Parkinsons pill container. To put it bluntly, it was obvious no one with Parkinsons was consulted when the pill bottle was designed. People read about his problem, and some decided to take action. A man on TikTok, who used to rattle off obscure Snapple facts, took it upon himself to learn a 3d design program and create a better pill bottle. Within a few days, he released the prototype under a creative commons license. Now, this man didn’t have a 3d printer, so engineers and hobbyist around the world took his file and started to improve upon the design and tolerances. Within a few more days, version five was complete. This final version has been made available for the public and the cost is less than that of a cheap McDonalds toy. All in about a week’s time.Â
What can we learn from this amazing show of humanity and ingenuity? We can see that our community may already have, or at least are willing to work to find, the answer to our problems. We can see that a well worded message can elicit worldwide compassion and support! We can see that even problems as small as a pill bottle have solutions waiting to be found. Our communities have many people in them with skills and abilities that are just waiting to be tapped. When we can tap into these community resources, great things can be done.Â
Currently, I am setting up my 3d printer to print out a run of these for my community. If you are in the Los Angeles/ Inland Empire area, shoot us a message and we will help you out!
