AFAIK ambassador’s don’t get paid. I think they get sent free 3D Hubs promotional material and some advertising support.
If they run a hub, and have completed enough orders (are “level 3”), they can also officially offer a 25% discount to students. This also comes with some (potential) marketing advantages; that nice “student discount” badge on your listing. However the terms of where the discount comes from has changed over time, if memory serves. I believe it used to be that 3D Hubs would do a deeper discount on their fees. But now they reduce their fee to the hub by 25% and also reduce the hubs income by 25%. Which makes it very interesting in terms of setting your pricing depending on the number of student orders you get. I understand why a 25% flat discount is better for marketing all hubs, but as a hub operator I do wish I had some control over it. e.g. if I were to suddenly get a lot of student orders I’d have to either drop out of the programme or artificially increase my rates to give a discount that works with my business model… both of these options would be bad for me and my customers
So I don’t think there’d be any issue for a high school student to be an ambassador (junior ambassador?) - they could get the free promotional material. 3D hubs could also provide them with some presentation materials and online support (e.g. some remote coaching about how to do a presentation) to introduce 3D printing to their peers - e.g. lunchtime presentations etc. This could make it appealing to high-schoolers, especially if they could count it towards volunteer/other extra-curricular activity requirements. They wouldn’t need to be a hub. One step further would be to find local student-friendly hubs and put them in touch with the “junior ambassadors” to do an event at their school. But that could get worrisome from liability/press point of view: putting “strangers” in touch with “minors.”
As always, it gets complicated quickly if you want to reach/involve kids!
Is the student ambassador program open to hubs exclusively, or can university students with a great amount of experience both printing and running a hub potentially occupy this position?
This is Nahla here from 3D hubs. I’m afraid the Ambassador program is closed at the moment. Sorry to disappoint you.
We do however have a Student Grant we carry out on a yearly basis : Student innovation grant 2020 | Hubs You can keep an eye out for the next Student Grant of 2018 if you are interested.
Best,
Nahla - 3D Hubs