Slime Mould Maze

Recently I attended a workshop at the Edge on 3D printing and slime mould.

The event’s title was so whack, that I signed up - not knowing what to expect.. This is what we did:

First, an intro to 3D printing. We create a maze in TinkerCad

TinkerCad, was until recently going to shut down, but luckily AutoDesk bought them out.

It’s a fantastic way to ease into CAD, and produce 3D printable things. Within 5 minutes I grasped how to use it. Super simple.

Then we made some Agar, chucked the 3D maze in to a petrie dish, and dropped a piece of ravenous slime mould into the middle of it, with some rolled oats.

Then I hid my slime mould in a dark box, and 2 days later - my simple maze was solved!

This is a fascinating timelapse video, of slime mould’s ability to actually solve the maze intelligently.