“Ellen’s Design Challenge”

9 p.m. Mondays on HGTV

Two designers with Hawaii ties are vying for the top spot in the second season of HGTV’s “Ellen’s Design Challenge,” hosted by Ellen DeGeneres.

Miles Endo and Melissa Rivera Torres were among 10 contestants selected from about 600 applicants for a shot at the show’s $100,000 cash prize. Although shooting has ended, both must keep the outcome secret until the show’s March 7 finale. (The first episode aired Monday.)

The program marks Rivera Torres’ second time on a design reality show. In 2012 she appeared on HGTV’s “White Room Challenge,” a spinoff series from the network’s “Design Star” competition. She came in second place, falling short because she didn’t use enough candy during a candy challenge that had the designers creating a bedroom suitable for children.

This time around, she said, “I didn’t think I was going to make it because it came at an awkward time in my life.”

Born and raised in Mexico City, she earned a degree in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2001. She moved to Hawaii in 2006 to teach art and graphic design. While here, Rivera Torres, 36, opened Unleash Studio to provide design services ranging from logos to T-shirts, furniture and interior design.

Last year she moved to Little Rock, Ark., and eight months later was in the midst of a road-trip move from Arkansas to California when word came that she had made it onto “Ellen’s Design Challenge.”

“I was passing by Vegas and thought I could take a break and chill, but they gave us homework. This was not my normal. I didn’t have a studio. I had to go to Walgreens to get something to draw.”

That homework turned out to be the first challenge in a casting special that sent Rivera Torres to the bottom three for a pinwheel coffee table that judge Christiane Lemieux saw as a potential tripping hazard. The designer redeemed herself during a final challenge with her design of a child’s sailboat chair, and two of the other designers went home.

MEANWHILE, Endo breezed through the casting episode by making a social-grill table based on the yakiniku concept. He created a picnic table with a grill running its entire length so no one person would be saddled with cooking chores as at a typical backyard barbecue.

Endo is the son of taiko master Kenny Endo and grew up both playing and refurbishing the drums.

“Playing taiko was embedded in my life. On Sunday afternoons, instead of going to church or playing basketball, I’d play the drums.

“As son of the sensei, there were a lot of expectations of me. I had to behave myself out of respect for my family.”

But at Punahou School, where he graduated in 2006, he gravitated to art, particularly ceramics. He was also inspired by his mother Chizuko’s work: In addition to taiko drumming, she had studied Japanese theater arts, and in her home studio she carved Noh masks.

Like Rivera Torres, he earned a degree in industrial design at RISD, considered the Harvard of design schools.

“At first I started applying to all colleges, but I knew I wanted to study art and design,” Endo said.

He wanted to design buildings but over time learned that when working with clients, “Unless you’ve built up a reputation as a designer, you don’t have that much room for creative expression.”

Working with furniture, he said, “gave me a lot of creative freedom at a young age because I can create everything myself, with very little help.”

Upon graduating from RISD in 2011, Endo, the youngest in the competition, at 28, worked in New York before opening his own company, Studio Endo, in Providence, R.I. His clients have included designer Jason Wu, The Knife and Saw, Canvas and Converse. He created a slingback chair for Converse out of the company’s shoe canvas, and he continues to construct taikos for performers around the globe.

Being so far from home and outside of major cities like Los Angeles or New York allowed him to concentrate fully on his work while being in close proximity to clients in New York and Boston. The downside: “It’s hard to find good Asian food in Providence.”

Endo went to school with two of the competitors on Season 1 of “Ellen’s Design Challenge,” Carly Eisenberg and winner Katie Stout, and was invited to apply.

“I thought maybe I could try doing it because I work well under pressure. I normally don’t watch reality TV, but I watched the first season because I’m very passionate about interior design and building things.”

On the show, the typical task entailed coming up with a sketch in 30 minutes, completing design plans and ordering materials, then spending the second day building with the help of a carpenter provided by the show.

“I feel like I flourished under pressure, and I’m pretty proud of the work I did.”

Although he and Rivera Torres hadn’t met before the show, he said, “I knew of her. On the TV show we found out we had so much in common: We both lived in Hawaii; we went to the same school and majored in the same thing. She’s a really sweet girl and we connected as friends.”

And unlike other reality shows that might promote personal feuds, Endo said that wasn’t the feeling on set.

“One major difference, I believe, is that it’s Ellen’s TV show, and she likes to be friends with everybody so she doesn’t promote any animosity.”

He said he enjoyed meeting DeGeneres, who he said is as personable as she appears on her talk show. “She’s really friendly, calm and down to earth. She didn’t make you feel like she was a celebrity and you weren’t.”

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