New on the Site: Virtual Dome, Species Quiz, and Community Tools

A Lot Just Shipped

Over the past few days, we have pushed a wave of features across the website and companion app. Here is what is new and how each feature helps the community.

Virtual Dome Demo

The companion app now includes a fully interactive virtual dome that anyone can try — no hardware required. Visit the app showcase page to see it embedded directly on the website, or open the standalone demo for the full experience.

The virtual dome simulates a complete growing environment:

• Animated dome visual that responds to sensor data in real time
• Multi-species selector — switch between Lion's Mane, Pink Oyster, Blue Oyster, and more to see how environmental targets change per species
• Simulated sensor readings for temperature, humidity, CO2, and light levels
• Climate controls — toggle the humidifier, FAE fan, and LED lighting and watch the dome respond
• Dynamic grow log that generates realistic cultivation events based on the selected species

This is not a video or a mockup. It is the actual companion app running with simulated data. When you eventually connect real hardware, the interface is identical — the only thing that changes is where the sensor data comes from.

Species Quiz with Personalized Onboarding

The species quiz matches you to your ideal first mushroom species based on your experience level, growing environment, goals, and preferences. Answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation with detailed cultivation tips.

What makes this more than a fun widget: when you subscribe with your quiz result, your welcome email is personalized to your matched species. A Lion's Mane grower gets tips about humidity and patience. A Pink Oyster grower gets advice about warm temperatures and fast harvests. The onboarding experience is tailored from the first touchpoint.

The quiz data feeds back into our understanding of the community. Knowing which species people are most interested in helps us prioritize firmware profiles, growing guides, and substrate kit offerings.

Interactive 3D STL Viewers

The build page now features interactive 3D viewers for every printable component. Rotate, zoom, and inspect the dome shell, vent caps, base housing, and substrate platform directly in your browser before downloading the files.

Each viewer uses Three.js to render the actual STL geometry. What you see is exactly what your slicer will see when you load the file. This helps builders verify that they are downloading the right component and understand how the pieces fit together before committing filament and print time.

The viewers are responsive — they work on desktop and mobile, with touch controls for rotation and pinch-to-zoom on phones and tablets.

Product Image Galleries

Every product page now includes a scrollable image gallery showing the dome from multiple angles. The Dark Dome, The Void, and Void Core pages each feature hero images and lifestyle shots that show the domes in real growing environments.

The product comparison page at /products includes inline carousels so you can visually compare the three tiers side by side without navigating between pages.

Dome Finder Quiz

Not sure which tier is right for you? The Dome Finder walks you through a quick assessment of your needs — growing experience, automation preferences, budget range, and how much you want to tinker — and recommends the right product tier.

This is different from the species quiz. The species quiz helps you choose what to grow. The Dome Finder helps you choose what to grow it in.

Community Infrastructure

The community page at /community now includes:

• Updated project timeline — 15 milestones tracking everything from project inception through the upcoming prototype build and crowdfunding campaign
• Dual contribute links — Quick paths to contribute via GitHub to both the hardware repository and the companion app
• Live platform connections — Direct links to Discord, Reddit, and GitHub with current community status

The progress page shows real-time milestone completion across all three workstreams — Prototype Build, Community Website, and Void Core App — with visual progress bars and phase counts.

Mycelium Animation System

You might have noticed the organic branching animations throughout the site. These are not stock effects — we built a custom animation engine that generates mycelium-like network patterns using bezier curves and golden ratio branching angles.

The animations appear as section dividers, hero backgrounds, and ambient effects. They respect prefers-reduced-motion for accessibility, and they are performance-optimized with cached path calculations and batched rendering.

The effect is subtle but intentional: the website itself grows like mycelium.

What All of This Enables

Every feature we shipped serves the same goal: lowering the barrier to entry for home mushroom cultivation.

The species quiz tells you what to grow. The Dome Finder tells you what to grow it in. The 3D viewers let you inspect before you print. The virtual dome demo lets you experience the app before you buy hardware. The community channels connect you with people who have already been through the learning curve.

None of these features require purchasing anything. You can take the quiz, explore the demo, download the STL files, read the species guides, and join the community — all for free, all open.

That is the point.

Explore everything on the homepage or jump straight to the species quiz to find your first grow.