3D Printers have really gone down the road towards one of the neatest pieces of Star Trek tech (in my opinion) known as the replicator. This device can basically make anything, and I mean anything, appear in a briefcase-sized opening in any wall on any ship in the Star Trek universe.
Would you like a cup of tea, Earl Grey, hot? No problem. New gun? No sweat. That is pretty nifty if you ask me.
I’ve always found it interesting that the replicator’s capabilities varied based on the needs of the plot. For example, it often for some reason could not produce the single thing people needed to solve their problems, forcing Kirk or Riker to romance some alien to save the day instead. Alas, that is Hollywood.
Anyway, at this point there is a device called a 3D printer that can make increasingly sophisticated things by printing very thin layers of plastic one on top of another. I hadn’t realized how sophisticated the process had become until I heard that somebody had printed out a working lower receiver for an AR-15 assault rifle and had fired rounds from it…holy moly.
After that, I heard a much less depressing story about something called self-sculpting sand. Basically this stuff is small, magnetized cubes roughly 10mm per side with microprocessors inside that can as a group map a 3D object and then recreate that object by linking together.
At some point, I’m expecting nano-tech to be able to make them incredibly tiny. Imagine needing a part for a machine, dumping it in a bag of dust, and an hour or so later, pulling a perfect replica out.
You can view the original article I found about this self-sculpting sand here.