Star Trek inspired device sees drones fly off factory line

A commercial laser cutter has been transformed from a 2D machine to a 3D all-in-one assembler capable of creating devices which can fly straight off the factory line.

LaserFactory is designed to create functional devices and robots, Martin Nisser, PhD student at MIT CSAIL said.

“We wanted to be able to fabricate something which required no human intervention to actually get it off the ground,” he said, explaining that they drew inspiration from the replicators on the science fiction series Star Trek.

BBC Click's LJ Rich reports.