A hardware architecture was developed specifically to facilitate collaborative development and dissemination of microfluidic experiments. Modular pressure regulators, incubators, and chip-to-world interfaces can be readily customized and 3D-printed by investigators. The architecture supports a range of experiments with both whole-organisms and single cells. Wide-spread adoption of a common, community-developed hardware platform for biological experimentation will propel large-scale collaborative efforts and accelerate scientific breakthroughs.