Labyrinth maze for Physarum

[Mark Skelly]

Hey all,

I'm eager to get a maze going for my new Physarum cultures and was wondering if anyone had any advice on a DIY maze. I'd thought about cutting a petri dish sized paper template that I could soak in a chili pepper solution to place on the agar to create pathway. But this morning the idea popped into my head that maybe a commercially available marble maze might be much more interesting and still relatively inexpensive.

Take a look at this one: https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Life-Classic-Travel-Puzzle/dp/B01JMJQ0W6

The trick would be to carefully remove the clear top without cracking it, taking the marbles out and setting up with the slime mold and some food before replacing the lid.

Has anybody tried something like this? If not, do you have any clever ideas for DIY mazes?

-Mark 

[ian]

Hi

Paper doesn't work well for me, agar is quite reliable. You'd need plain unflavoured vegan 'gelatin' basically - 2g per 200ml water makes something workable. You can cut it out with a stiff wire loop, spatula, a strip of staples works nicely or you can lay out walls of modeling clay, pour in the agar and lift out the clay afterwards.  Oh BTW they like chilli 

[Mark Skelly]

Hi ian,

Thanks for the suggestion. I really like the strip of staples idea for punching out a section of agar. So would the Physarum stay on top of the agar and avoid the dry surface that's it's sitting on?

Best,

Mark