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Garrett Santoline, a 2013 Clairton High School graduate is a member of ‘Team Huge’ on the TV show ‘Battlebots’ (Photo Credit: Daniel Longmire, and BattleBots Inc).

Garrett Santoline at work

SWPA BotsIQ alum, Garrett Santoline, is a member of ‘Team Huge’ on the TV show ‘Battlebots’. Santoline, a 2013 graduate of Clairton High School was a member of their BotsIQ team from 2010-2013. He now serves as a safety inspector at BotsIQ competitions, sharing his knowledge with the teams.

“I really enjoyed the push that combat robotics (BotsIQ) gave me to learn new skills such as design and fabrication,” Santoline said. “Before starting the program, I was always tinkering and fixing things, but I never had much experience with the design and fabrication and learning to build robots really pushed me to develop these skills.”

BotsIQ reaffirmed his decision to pursue engineering after high school. BotsIQ was able to prepare Santoline for his participation on Battlebots. “BotsIQ first challenged me to acquire the fundamental knowledge needed to compete at a level like Battlebots. Without BotsIQ, I may have never got into combat robotics,” Santoline stated.

Southwestern Pennsylvania BotsIQ is a manufacturing workforce development program of the Pittsburgh Chapter National Tooling & Machining Foundation (NTMA), a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. The program is affiliated with the National Robotics League and is managed by New Century Careers. Faced with an aging manufacturing workforce, the NTMA spearheaded efforts to bring a national student robotics program to the region. More than 5,000 students have participated in the program since its inception. For more information about SWPA BotsIQ, visit www.botsiqpa.org.

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