Remember Star Trek? Onboard the Starship Enterprise they had this nifty thing called a replicator. Just push a button and zap, Captain Kirk had chicken wings.

That kind of futuristic technology has landed at Boothbay Harbor's Radio Shack, where a 3D printer has been drawing a lot of attention lately. Every day crowds gather to watch as plastic turns into real life functional objects.

“Some people come in here on a daily basis and ask me what I'm printing” said Tom Dewey, the Radio Shack store manager. “Most people just come and they stand and stare at it.”

On the shelf sits a small scaled model house, a motorcycle, a screw top bottle, and the head of a tyrannosaurus with perfectly chiseled teeth.

Dewey said since Radio Shack first showcased the printer a month ago, he's been having a lot of fun printing different toys and models.

Dewey downloads a 3D image off a website and runs it through a computer program directly linked to the printer. The printer looks like a high-tech sewing machine. A draw motor threads plastic filament from a spool through a pointed nozzle that runs at 500 F. Positioned .2 millimeters above a matrix, the nozzle spits out melted plastic in layers with pinpoint precision. Each object takes about 6 to 8 hours to build.

Dewey called it a “hobbyist’s printer.” It could work well for designers, mechanical engineers and people that want to build models and prototypes.

Dewey showed off several contraptions containing axles, cogs, screw threads and working gears, all made in one piece by the printer, without any assembly required.

“It's pretty amazing stuff. You can even make workable bearings,” Dewey said. “That stuff just floors me.”

There is no design too complicated for the 3D printer, Dewey said, as he browsed the website, looking for something to build next. Even buildings with complex architecture like the Taj Mahal and Notre Dame are no match for the 3D printer.

Albeit it's not Captain Kirk's chicken wings, the 3D printer has caused a “wow” effect around the community, but no one has expressed any interest in buying one yet.

With a price tag of about $1,600, Dewey said it is a modest price for a consumer model. Commercial 3D printers can run up to $80,000.

In the medical field, surgeons are using 3D printers to make functional heart valves. In orbit, astronauts use 3D printers to produce metal alloy to repair parts on the international space station. According to Dewey, there's even been talk of companies experimenting with protein supplements to produce synthetic foods. So perhaps someday, astronauts could even be able to enjoy chicken wings in space.

 “The future is here,” Dewey said.

Coming soon: A timelapse video of the 3D printer creating an object from start to finish.