FunguyLab turns peer-reviewed research into things you build and grow. Assemble a light bio-printer and grow living Mucor prints, or grow and dye living slime mold — then go further with our STEAM curriculum and hands-on workshops. Living science is the medium.
By FunguyLab — Cultigen's first hands-on curriculum brand — built on our research published at SIGGRAPH Asia 2024.
Made a piece with our light-printing tech? We'll exhibit it at the Cambridge Science Carnival — “Grow with the Glow.”
Submit your work →
Real images from the research — the fungus, the laser, the pattern. Everything in the kit comes from this work.
Built on peer-reviewed research from SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 — the kit turns a frontier of bio-art and mycology into a hands-on experience: design a shape in software, run a machine you built, and grow living fungus into that exact shape.
Four years from a question in the lab to a kit on your desk.
Can a neural network learn to grow a living organism into a designed shape? The project starts in the lab — laser, agar, fungus, and a new question.
"Exploring Fungal Morphology Simulation and Dynamic Light Containment from a Graphics Generation Perspective" — accepted and presented at SIGGRAPH Asia Art Papers.
The research becomes a product. A light bio-printer, Mucor culture, agar medium, and complete control software — designed for the next generation of bio-artists and makers.
From peer-reviewed publication to artist conversations — the research that became Mycelian Micro has traveled.
Published at SIGGRAPH Asia Art Papers, Tokyo — one of the world's premier computer graphics venues. Research on fungal morphology simulation and dynamic light containment.
Read the science ↗
Presented inside MIT's Arts, Culture & Technology Cube. Gediminas Urbonas, ACT co-director and renowned artist, engaged directly in discussion.
Invited to present at BioFabricate — the world's leading bio-innovation summit. BioFabricate's Founder & CEO joined for a discussion on living materials and the future of bio-art.
See BioFabricate post ↗
A global art prize exploring climate change, biodiversity, and sustainability. Mycelian received the Jury Choice Award and was exhibited in Venice, Auckland, and Sharjah, UAE — reaching 40,000+ visitors.
See award results ↗From a feature in Hackaday to Reddit's maker and mycology communities — here's how the maker world responded to the project.
Hackaday — a leading maker & hardware-hacker publication — featured the Funguy project: using a laser to guide living Mucor fungus into designed patterns, driven by neural-network growth prediction.
Read the article ↗"I built a DIY fungal printer that uses light to grow living art"
"Using light to guide growth sounds like some sci-fi stuff."
"Brilliant, very cool! Will you post your project or general methodology anywhere? Might be cool to do a study on it as well to explore various applications."
"You could make woven Celtic-like patterns, spirals, mycelial circuit boards… if there's a way to actuate them and find analogs of basic electronics components."
Assemble a working low-power light bio-printer from its components. Understand motors, optics, and control electronics by putting them together with your own hands. Swap in a different wavelength laser module to repurpose it as a desktop laser cutter or engraver — the same hardware, new creative possibilities for maker projects.
Cultivate Mucor — a fast-growing, safe, edible fungus — on agar plates. Observe how its mycelial network spreads, branches, and responds to light as a living material. At the end of its lifecycle, the fungal artwork fully composts: no waste, no synthetic materials left behind — just soil.
Design any pattern in the control software. The system generates a laser path and sends it to your machine — fungus grows where light doesn't reach, completing your design.
The kit traces a complete creative loop — from a digital sketch to a machine you assembled to a petri dish of living art.
Assemble your low-power DIY light printer from the kit components — motors, frame, optics, controller board. No experience required; guided step by step.
Draw or import any shape in the control software, then preview how it will grow with the AI simulator. The software turns your design into a light path and sends the job to your machine.
Inoculate an agar plate with Mucor and run the print. The beam traces your design; the fungus avoids the light and fills the unlit areas — completing your pattern over 1–2 days.
Everything you need for the full design–build–grow loop. No extra tools required.
Low-power laser module, frame, stepper motors, controller board, and all fasteners — a full working machine you assemble from scratch.
Food-safe, fast-growing edible fungus spores. White branching growth visible within 24–48 hours.
Pre-measured nutrient agar powder. Mix, pour, and set — the canvas your fungus grows on.
Draw freehand, import SVG/images, or choose from templates. Any shape becomes a printable fungal pattern.
Automatically converts your design into precise G-code laser instructions for the printer.
Preview how Mucor will fill in your pattern before committing to a print — based on the neural cellular automaton from our research.
A hands-on DIY biology project that's genuinely cutting-edge: build a laser machine, grow bio-art, and have research-backed results to present — perfect for science fair, homeschool, or after-school clubs.
An interdisciplinary unit covering engineering, biology, and computational design — with a concrete, shareable outcome every student makes.
Undergrads, biohackers, and makers exploring living computation, bio-art, and the frontier of organism-as-medium.
Order a funguy kit (Mycelian Micro) at early-bird pricing. Kits ship in 4–7 business days. Early-bird price locks until August 20, 2026.
Order your funguy kit →
SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 · 
reEarth 2025
1–2 day grow cycle
18–26 °C · any warm room
Edible fungus · from fermented food
Class 1 laser product · goggles included · ages 13+ →
