Contestants are high school students who design and build machines to compete for a $10,000 college scholarship from Intel.

Targeted towards middle school students, the website enables children to share engineering ideas and sketches with each other, devise solutions to global design challenges, play games, and watch a web series hosted by Ball and Season 2 contestant Deysi Melgar.

"[8] Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media gave the series four out of five stars, stating that it "proves that if it's done right, reality TV can be both fun and functional.

"[10] Ashby gave Design Squad Nation the same rating, stating: "From the obvious benefits of exposing kids to useful applications of science to strong messages about creative thinking, teamwork, and problem solving, there’s no end to the positive takeaways available here.

The series won a Peabody Award in 2007 "for 'designing' an outstanding program to interest young people in careers related to engineering.

Design Squad Nation won an Emmy Award in 2012 for “outstanding new approaches” in children’s daytime television.