We know your schedule is demanding, so our projects are highly flexible and milestone-based. Most volunteer engineers contribute between 2 to 5 hours a week. You can browse our project board and claim design challenges that fit your current bandwidth. Whether that's a quick weekend sprint or a longer-term iterative project, we would love to have you join our team.

We strongly prefer Onshape because its cloud-based architecture makes collaboration, version control, and file sharing seamless across our distributed teams. If you don't currently use Onshape, we highly encourage you to create a free hobbyist account and start practicing. Beyond the software, we need engineers who understand Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM)—specifically managing tolerances, optimizing overhangs, and designing for structural integrity.

You will tackle the mechanical and structural challenges our standard labs don't have the bandwidth or expertise to solve. This ranges from complex interlocking mechanisms and heavy-duty load-bearing joints to custom jigs, sensor housings, and fluid-tight couplings. We provide the functional requirements and constraints; you provide the engineering solution.

Yes, we strongly encourage our volunteer engineers to have access to their own 3D printer. While our on-site labs handle the final fabrication, having your own machine allows you to rapidly prototype, test physical tolerances, and verify functionality before sending files to the field. Testing your designs locally is crucial to minimizing failed prints and wasted material in our deployed labs.

When you claim a project, you'll be connected directly with the lab coordinator who requested the part. Once your locally-tested design is submitted, the lab will print it on their specific machines and test it in the field. They will provide you with real-world feedback, photos, and performance notes so you can iterate and refine the geometry if necessary.

To maximize our global impact, designs created for Amauris are released under an open-source license. While you retain the underlying ownership of your original design, our volunteer agreement asks you to grant us the rights to host, modify, and distribute the files. This is essential for building our Digital Stockroom—a curated library where we thoroughly vet your designs and pair them with precise, tested print profiles (temperatures, wall counts, layer heights) to ensure they are safe and functional for field labs everywhere.