- Program Summary
- Slideshow
- Program Viewing Tips
- Cast Descriptions
- Episode Descriptions
- TV Credits - Season 1
- TV Credits - Season 2
Episode Descriptions
Season 2 of Design Squad returns to PBS with 13 half-hour episodes starting the week of April 2. Host Nate Ball guides eight new contestants as the teams construct cardboard furniture for IKEA, build hockey net targets for a Boston Bruins player, and design underwater prostheses for an amputee dancer. Working in groups of four, contestants brainstorm, design, build, test, and redesign, before putting their products to the test. Keeping their eyes on the grand prize—a $10,000 college scholarship provided by the Intel Foundation—and their cool when things get hot, Design Squad-ers soon discover that engineering can make anything possible!
At the end of most episodes are "D-Squad Pro Files." Through these short videos, viewers meet engaging young engineers who demonstrate that engineering is a creative career where you get to work with great people, solve interesting problems, and design things that matter.
Season 2
Episode 201: Cardboard Furniture
Sit back and relax as the Design Squad teams create innovative, yet practical cardboard furniture for the home goods superstore IKEA. Furniture shoppers take a seat in the judges' chair to decide the season premiere's winning team.
D-Squad Pro File: 25-year-old Jennifer Chua is a packaging engineer who works at Method, a company in San Francisco that specializes in nontoxic, biodegradable products. Jennifer makes high-quality products that are both good-looking and good for the environment. (Can also be seen at pbs.org/designsquad.)
Watch the Pro File: Package Design
Episode 202: PVC Kayak
Jump on board as King Island Alaskan native Sean Gallagher challenges the Design Squad teams to build ten-foot kayaks using traditional design but with non-traditional materials.
D-Squad Pro File: Mechanical and design engineer Connie Yang is as extreme as the high-tech tents she designs for NEMO Equipment.
Watch the Pro File: High Tech Tents
Episode 203: Green Machines
The teams go green as they work with the Food Project, an organization that creates social change through sustainable agriculture. Two young Food Project volunteers challenge the teams to design a compost lifter for their urban farm.
D-Squad Pro File: Industrial engineer Erin Gately creates new environmentally friendly products for Hewlett-Packard by ensuring that HP's computer products are made with fewer non-recyclable materials.
Watch the Pro File: Green Machine
Episode 204: Gravity Bikes
Watch the Design Squad teams in a head-to-head competition as they build high-speed, gravity bikes for Gravity Sports International champion Tom Whalen.
D-Squad Pro File: Gael Force Team 126 from Clinton, Massachusetts, is one of more than 1,300 teams that compete each year at the annual FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics competition. Teams had just six weeks to design, build, and test a robot that raced around a track to move a 40-inch inflatable ball.
Watch the Pro File: FIRST Robotics
Episode 205: Water Dancing
Dancer and performance artist Lisa Bufano, a bilateral leg and finger amputee, challenges the teams to build specialized prostheses for an underwater performance.
D-Squad Pro File: Greg Jones applies his mechanical engineering skills in a broad range of artistic endeavors including "La Contessa," a replica of a 40-foot Spanish galleon built over a school bus.
Watch the Pro File: Mecha-Sculpture
Episode 206: Backyard Thrill Ride
The teams bring the adrenaline rush of an amusement park ride to the backyard of 13-year-old Andreas Hoffman.
D-Squad Pro File: What is more fun then riding a roller coaster? Ask mechanical engineer Chris Gray and he'd say building one! At Greater Coaster International, Chris applies his creActivity and engineering know-how to build exhilarating (and safe!) roller coasters.
Watch the Pro File: Roller Coasters
Episode 207: Big Bugs
Design Squad gets back to nature as the teams sculpt large-scale insects from found forest materials. The winning arthropod will be on display at the New England Wild Flower Society's Big Bugs exhibit.
D-Squad Pro File: Matt Sisul and William Cao are 20-something structural engineers who volunteer for Engineers without Borders to promote urban development in Africa and South America.
Watch the Pro File: Build Without Borders
Episode 208: Aquatic Robotics
Super Duck Excursions, the Boston-based terra-amphibious touring company, challenges the teams to create underwater radio-controlled robots to spice up their narrated tours.
D-Squad Pro File: Mikell Taylor, a systems engineer at Bluefin Robotics, not only builds Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) for the U.S. Navy, but she's also taken the lead in creating a new consumer product: a personal training device for swimmers.
Watch the Pro File: Swimming Robot
Episode 209: Band Cam
There's nothing like the World Music rhythms of Zili Misik to send the Design Squad teams into an artistic groove. The eight-member all-female band challenges the teams to create remote-controlled aerial camera systems to cover their live performance.
D-Squad Pro File: Mark Cayla, Head Engineer for Airship Management Services in North Carolina, maintains and operates some of the world's largest blimps for everyone from presidential candidates to the military.
Episode 210: No Crying in Baseball
The teams must hit a home run for Del "The Dogman" Christman—local celebrity and hot dog vendor for the Lowell Spinners (a Class A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox)—who is in need of an onion dispenser to dress up his dogs.
D-Squad Pro File: 25-year-olds Curtis Cruz and Becky O'Hara, engineers for Rawlings Sporting Goods, have a dream job that combines their passion for baseball with their love of math and science.
Watch the Pro File: Baseball Bats
Episode 211: Hockey Net Target
They shoot, they score! Boston Bruins defenseman Matt Lashoff challenges the teams to build remote-controlled hockey net targets.
D-Squad Pro File: Leila Hasan combines creActivity with technology as the lead engineer for the GigaPan, a robotic device that takes high-resolution panoramic imagery for consumer use.
Watch the Pro File: GigaPan Camera
Episode 212: Off-Road Go-Karts Part 1
Episode 213: Off-Road Go-Karts Part 2
In this two-part season finale, the teams revamp go-karts in a high-speed off-road race. The fastest go-kart will be featured in MAKE Magazine, and the contestant who ends up with the most total points wins… a college scholarship provided by the Intel Foundation.
D-Squad Pro File: Arie and Griffen Ouimet, twin teenaged brothers, race go-karts at the SSC East racetrack in Braintree, Massachusetts. Arie prefers to be behind the wheel, while Griffen puts his engineering skills to work in the pits. The brothers are mentored by Dave Davidson, a mechanical engineer who developed the Freedom Wheel, a go-kart steering wheel that works without foot controls.
Season 1
Episode 101: The Need for Speed
A professional racecar builder challenges the DS teams to convert kiddie toys—a red wagon and tricycle—into motorized dragsters. Fasten your seatbelts for Design Squad's racy debut!
D-Squad Pro File: Former oil engineer, Pete Bethune, goes green by designing the world's first high-speed powerboat—fueled entirely by biodiesel. Listen in as Pete lays out his plan to circumnavigate the globe in his clean, green machine—EarthRace.
Watch the Pro File: Biodiesel Powerboat
Episode 102: Rock On
The teams compete to create original musical instruments—one stringed and one percussive—for Off White Noise, a local band. The instruments are put to the test when Off White Noise rocks out at the Middle East nightclub.
D-Squad Pro File: Hasbro toy engineer Amanda Bligh demonstrates how work can be play when you spend your day designing products like Nerf Hoops and Nerf Blaster.
Episode 103: Skunk'd
When a guy named Skunk comes looking for a bike bizarre enough to impress the members of SCUL (Subversive Choppers Urban Legion), well, you give him what he wants. The rubber really hits the road when DS parades their newly created choppers (bikes) on a SCUL mission.
Episode 104: DS Unplugged
The teams take a crash course in pre-industrial building techniques, as they compete to build 20-foot bridges—without the aid of power tools, forklifts, or...flushable toilets. It's a show for the (Middle) Ages!
D-Squad Pro File: Jennifer Nakayama of SeaWorld puts to use her skills as an environmental and civil engineer to create a cool new habitat for warm weather Humboldt penguins.
Watch the Pro File: Penguin Habitat
Episode 105: Got Game
Challenged to come up with a way to cover all the angles of a basketball game via remote-controlled cameras, the teams dive into action and compete to prove who's got (the whole) game!
D-Squad Pro File: Coming up with ways to map underwater terrain takes some deep thinking. Oceanographic engineer Amy Kukulya dives right into the challenge by designing torpedo-shaped robots that chart the contours of the ocean's floor.
Watch the Pro File: Underwater Robot
Episode 106: A Collective Collaboration
The teams set their sights on designing the most durable, portable and low cost peanut butter making machines for a women's collective in Haiti. Powered by human hands and inspiring to the human heart, DS shows that engineering really can change lives.
D-Squad Pro File: A mother of three, Debbie Theobald knows all about coming to the rescue. Watch how Debbie and a team of engineers bring to life BEAR, a robot designed to remove people from dangerous settings and situations.
Watch the Pro File: Rescue Robot
D-Squad Pro File: Employing the same skills he uses in his work at NASA, Evan Thomas, a volunteer working with Engineers Without Borders, designs water recovery and purification systems for use in the arid country of Rwanda.
Watch the Pro File: NASA Toilet
Episode 107: Just for Kicks
The challenge: design a REVOLUTIONary device that automatically feeds a stream of balls to Michael Parkhurst, a professional soccer player with the New England Revolution. Here's one Design Squad's episode that's sure to be a ball.
D-Squad Pro File: Burton snowboard gurus, Scott Keller and Chris Fidler, fill us in on how they design bindings that really click and boards that excel on any snowy terrain. It's a process of ups and down, leaps and landings as the Burton boys carve up the slopes.
Watch the Pro File: Snowboards
Episode 108: Functional Fashion
It's a marriage of high tech and haute couture (well, sort of!) as the teams compete to see who can design the best dual-purpose clothing. Join DS on the runway as the garments/gadgets make their fashion debut.
D-Squad Pro File: Medical science meets tissue engineering as Dr. Howard Pryor develops an implantable device designed to help people suffering from liver disease.
Watch the Pro File: Artificial Liver
Episode 109: Batter Up
How to make a perfect pancake? The DS teams seek the right ingredients for a machine that will cook, flip, and serve up delicious flapjacks at the flick of a switch. The winning machine is put to the (taste) test at a busy diner.
D-Squad Pro File: Talk about a sweet gig: Working with the innovative ice cream recipes of Ben & Jerry's food scientists, mechanical engineer Pete Gosselin creates specialized machinery to produce the perfect balance of Chunky and Monkey.
Episode 110: Pumped
An 11-foot tall water slide will be a cool addition to the community pool...once there's a pump to deliver the water. See which invention makes the biggest splash with YMCA campers.
D-Squad Pro File: Mechanical engineer Sarah Grenier fulfills her need for speed by transforming her beat up VW into a sleek, slick racecar...and races it herself.
Episode 111: Blowin' in the Wind
The teams tap into their inner artists as they compete to design and build wind-powered kinetic art from recycled materials. The winning sculpture is put on display at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Episode 112: Bodies Electric
DESIGN SQUAD-ers take a shine to hip-hop artist Wyatt Jackson when they try to create a sound and light show triggered by Jackson's moves and grooves. In a live performance, it's DS night at the Strand Theatre!
D-Squad Pro File: Electrical engineer Lt. Darrin Barber plumes the depths of sonar technology in his work on the U.S. Navy's newest—and most high-tech—submarine, the USS Texas.
Watch the Pro File: Submarine Sonar
Episode 113: Winner Takes All
The season concludes when Continuum (a design consulting firm) asks the DS teams to develop and test a "summer sled" for retail giant L.L. Bean. It's a bumpy, downhill slide to the finish line!