Pittsburgh Chapter National Tooling & Machining Foundation

The Pittsburgh Chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Foundation spear-headed efforts to bring a national student robotics program to the Pittsburgh region in 2005. In the first year, local manufacturers and educators joined forces with just 6 schools and launched BotsIQ. Now after more than a decade, BotsIQ touches thousands of students and boasts more than 70 teams and its own fan base. The BotsIQ curriculum is based on the National Curriculum Standards (NIMS) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT) Mechanical engineering methodology. Southwestern Pennsylvania students learn to design, build and battle robots in a gladiator-style competition. The competition draws on the students, knowledge of math, science, engineering and even public speaking. Perhaps most importantly, students see that manufacturing is a viable and profitable career option. We like to say that BotsIQ is a workforce development program disguised as a robotics competition.