12,000
+
STUDENT MEMBERS
15
AFFILIATED SCHOOLS
1
COMMUNITY
What is National Design League
National Design League (NDL) is the official Designathon league. We partner with universities and student leaders to host weekend-long design competitions that inspire innovation, cultivate communities and teach design-thinking skills to more than 12,000 students around the world. Our goal is to grow this community and inspire the next generation of designers and innovators.
What is a Designathon?
Designathons are weekend long design competitions. Participants are given a selection of real-world design challenges to choose from and they have 24-36 hours to design a solution. There are two types of Designathons - Engineering Designathons and UI/UX Designathons.
FRIDAY
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Students arrive at the event (In-person or online). Design challenges are revealed. Students select a challenge to tackle, form teams, and get straight to work.
SUNDAY
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Students showcase their project, science-fair style. Judges select the top solutions for each challenge. Winners move on to the annual National Designathon.
SATURDAY
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Students spend the next 24-36 hours designing and building their solutions. It's truly a weekend filled with design, creativity, and networking.
Powering Designathons and Beyond
From providing organizer resources to sharing a hardware lab of 3D printers and workstations, our goal is to make it easy for student groups to host Designathons. We want these events accessible to as many students as possible and work tirelessly with student leaders to make this a reality.