MudTronics is a collaborative competition that brings together bio, tech, and art/design to explore what we can do with microbial fuel cells. Participants experiment with turning mud, wastewater and microbes into power, creating prototypes that are playful, critical, and ecologically grounded. The programme runs from June to September 2026.
MudTronics aims to inspire and connect local makers, artists, scientists, and technologists while developing new approaches and applications for communication, sensing, and ecological solutions, or any innovative and compelling idea.
It supports teams in shared designing and building microbially powered applications, and empowers individuals and ideas to transfer knowledge, strengthen local communities, and build long-term collaborations.
MudTronics encourages participants to explore how a waste-driven low power source can shape IOT, biorobotics, agriculture and other spheres.
Selected proposals will receive starter kits with essential materials for building microbial fuel cells, including carbon veil and membranes (June). Teams will then work independently on their projects, supported during the entire process by online workshops (July) with Mi-Hy scientists and regular feedback rounds (July–August).
Finally, around ten projects will be invited, with travel support, to the finals at Empower Université Paris-Saclay, France (22–24 September 2026), where teams will have space for informal collaboration, feedback, and reflection, connecting with each other, with local communities, and with the more-than-human environments that make microbial power possible.
