Teleporting is no longer the sole territory of Star Trek. This latest project from the Hasso Plattner Institute might not be shortening your commute time just yet but it essentially is a teleportation device.
So how does it work? Basically it’s made from two 3D printers. One has a scanner built in, while the other is a regular scanner which reassembles things via a Raspberry Pi. Awesomely the device actually is called Scotty.
So in other words, you take your object, place it in one machine and then watch as it’s magically ‘reconstructed’ by the other machine which could be on the other end of the globe.
Here’s the thing though: the original item actually gets destroyed, which is what makes it a teleportation device rather than just a very impressive scanner. This is actually necessary though, in order for the object to be completely reverse engineered. By destroying it layer by layer, the scanner is able to see all the inner workings so that they may be perfectly recreated on the other end.
So there’s no way that you could teleport a person with this sadly. But if you had a machine that was big enough, you could destroy yourself and have a perfect plastic copy (with organs and all) built on the other side of the world. Which actually would be pretty awesome…
Source – TechCrunch via 3Dprint
