Games to Play with Your Slime Mould: Mazes and Experiments
Use the Daywalker maze to observe how Physarum polycephalum explores routes towards food. Photograph the same view over time and compare trials: a living culture does not produce a guaranteed route or finish time.
What comes in the Daywalker activity kit?
The Daywalker Slime Mould Activity Kit contains one maze, one live culture on its existing agar plate and 100g organic rolled oats. Additional plain non-nutrient agar, a suitable covered observation container and handling tools are not supplied. The maze-only accessory does not include culture or food.
Prepare before transferring your culture
Read our slime mould care guide. Keep some healthy culture on the original plate as a backup. Use clean tweezers, clean hands and a level work surface. This is an observation activity, not food preparation; supervise children and do not eat the culture or experimental oats.
A hydrated growing surface is needed in the maze. Plain non-nutrient water agar is a standard experimental surface; the supplied culture plate is a starter culture, not a refill of agar for the whole maze. Obtain additional prepared water agar or prepare it following its supplier's instructions before starting. Keep hot preparation separate from the live culture. Do not pour boiling agar into the PLA maze or use heat sterilisation on it. Use a clean, suitably sized covered observation container that retains humidity without crushing the maze.
First activity: follow the growing front
- Set up a thin hydrated surface within the maze routes, leaving the walls exposed. Let any prepared agar set and cool fully before adding living material. Avoid standing water.
- With clean tools, move a small piece of active yellow culture or a colonised oat from the starter plate to a chosen starting point. Keep the remainder as your backup.
- Place a small oat fragment further along an accessible route. Start with little food so the growing front is easy to observe.
- Cover the setup and keep it out of direct sunlight, away from radiators and temperature swings. Follow the culture care guidance for stable conditions.
- Photograph it immediately, then check periodically over the next few days. Record first contact with the food separately from later coverage. Some cultures move sooner than others.
Compare routes
Repeat using the same start point, food amount and conditions, changing only the target position. Note which passages are explored, where thicker veins form and whether routes later retract. If growth crosses a wall, record it: the maze guides observation but is not a sealed barrier. Do not interpret one run as proof that the organism always finds the shortest path.
Keep the experiment usable
If the surface dries, floods or develops fuzzy contamination, stop that trial and restart on a fresh surface using healthy backup material. Remove spoiled food with clean tools. Feed modestly rather than scattering oats everywhere. Wash the maze gently after use, rinse thoroughly and let it dry; avoid boiling water, dishwashers and abrasive cleaning.
Background and further reading
These steps adapt established culture-transfer and food-placement methods to a home observation activity. See the Center for Cellular Construction's Physarum activity for agar transfers and oat placement, and Virginia Tech's Biotech in a Box teaching resources for classroom experiments. They are background methods, not independent testing of this particular maze. Continue with our culture care guide and browse starter kits.