FunguyLab Mycelian Micro — BantuProduksi

FunguyLab Mycelian Micro bio STEAM kit — design, build, and grow living fungal art

Project Overview

FunguyLab turns frontier bio-art research into a hands-on educational product — the funguy kit (Mycelian Micro). Students and makers assemble a DIY laser printer, inoculate Mucor fungus on agar plates, design patterns in software, and watch living mycelium grow their exact shape in 1–2 days.

BantuProduksi is FunguyLab's manufacturing partner. We help take the kit from research prototype to production-ready hardware — fabricating and assembling the printer components, sourcing and packaging materials, and ensuring every unit that ships meets the quality and care the design demands. Marcello Tania and FunguyLab founder Kexin Wang first met at the MIT; that shared lab experience is the foundation of this partnership.

From the Lab

Real images from the research behind the kit — the fungus, the laser, the patterns, and the control software that turns a digital sketch into living art.

DIY laser printer and inoculated Mucor agar plates.

Printed living fungal artwork grown from light containment — Printed living fungal artwork — growth shaped by dynamic light containment.

FunguyLab control software — design to print workflow — Control software — draw a shape, simulate growth, and send the laser path to the printer.

Video Demonstrations

Print demo — laser containment guiding Mucor growth into a designed pattern.

Science overview — how dynamic light containment shapes living fungal growth.

Kit preview — the design–build–grow loop in action.

Peer-Reviewed Research

The kit is built on peer-reviewed work presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 Art Papers, Tokyo:

Exploring Fungal Morphology Simulation and Dynamic Light Containment from a Graphics Generation Perspective
Kexin Wang · Ivy He · Jinke Li · Ali Asadipour · Yitong Sun

The paper reframes fungal morphology simulation as a two-dimensional graphic time-series generation problem and introduces a neural-network-driven cellular automaton. A low-power laser exploits Mucor's photophobic response to contain growth at a designed boundary — the same principle the kit lets students run by hand.

Complete system framework from SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 paper — Fig. 1 — Complete system framework: observation, neural CA simulation, and dynamic laser containment.

Dynamic light containment shaping fungal growth — Dynamic light containment — laser boundary guides real Mucor growth.

Four target patterns realized in living Mucor — simulation vs. growth.

Time-lapse growth sequence of Mucor pattern — Time-lapse growth sequence — Mucor filling in an unlit design over hours.

Recognition & Community

The research behind Mycelian Micro has been presented and recognized internationally — from SIGGRAPH Asia and MIT to BioFabricate and the reEarth International Art Prize.