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Screw You!
There are plenty of pain points when it comes to screwdrivers and screwdriver bits. Striped screws, costly replacements, countless varieties of screws, a countless number of screwdriver bits are needed to complete the job. If you are working on a computer, you need a different screwdriver and a different bit than you would need to change an outlet for example. You’d potentially need a different screwdriver and bit for each project and they aren’t cheap! The heavy duty metal needed to construct a sturdy bit leads the cost of the tool to be high. In fact, the screwdriver bit industry was expected to be ~$6,500,000,000 in 2023. That is over six billion dollars worth of screwdriver heads. If only we could find a way to capitalize on that market…
A New Screwdriver to Replace Them All
Imagine a single screwdriver bit that can fit the mold of any screw head. This could potentially disrupt a major market, solving the common pain points of screwdrivers today. The concept is relatively simple, yet hard to explain. Imagine a marker with essentially a thimble at the end with thousands of tiny holes. Each of these holds has a designated needle that fits in it. The needles can drop down through the thimble holes, but will not fall out (similar to a pin art toy).
With thousands/millions of these needles at the end of the marker, users can drop it directly over the screw. Here it will form a mold of the screw head. With this mold now formed, you can lock the pins in place and have a perfect fit for the given screw head (even for partially striped screws!). After the screw is removed, you can unlock the pins/needles and reuse it for the next screw variation.
Universal Screwdriver Complications
As much as I love this idea, there are some issues I came across. There are two major pain struggles I thought of initially, but I am sure there are plenty more. Firstly, the cost to develop something with such fine details as this may become more costly than repurchasing multiple heads. Secondly, I was unable to think of a great way to lock and unlock the pins once the mold was formed. There were ways that would make the screwdriver unusable after the fact, but the whole purpose of this development is to create a reusable universal screwdriver.
Ideology
As with all of the ideas I will post, refer to my ideology on my initial post. You can take this idea and run with it, my goal of sharing these is to help spark further ideas and action. Folks with engineering backgrounds that I do not have are more likely to make this into something successful and beneficial, and I’d rather have that than horde the concept. If you do end up working on this, please let me know. I’d love to be involved/support where it makes sense, but I will not be able to drop all my other concepts for any single idea.
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