About

About Us

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llendale Robotics is a organization based out of Allendale, MI that provides quality robotics programs to students of all ages. We offer teams for students from Allendale and the surrounding areas. Our programs teach students design, programming and building, along with other valuable skills such as public speaking and marketing. We offer programs for students in grades K-12 which simulate real life situations. Our teams is mentored by volunteers, many of whom are professionals in the fields that our team prepares our students for. If you're looking for a fun after school activity, Allendale Robotics could be for you!

Our TriSonics Mentors

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Aaron Dana
Build Mentor

Aaron joined the TriSonics in the 2018 FRC Season. He comes from one of our awesome sponsors, Standale Lumber. Aaron is the Lead Mentor on our Build team and is working on becoming one of our machinist mentors!

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Chad Potinsky
Head Coach / Design Mentor

Chad Potinsky is the head mentor for Allendale Robotics and has been a FIRST Mentor since 2002 (starting on Holland C.H.A.O.S.- Team 74).  In 2001 he formed an FLL team and FLL Jr team in Allendale and, in 2012, he founded our FRC Team - 4003: The TriSonics.

During the day, he is an Advanced Manufacturing Engineer working for ODL in Zeeland, MI.

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David Austin
Programming Mentor

David Austin started as a coach for FLL in 2008 and has been the programming mentor for our FRC team since 2012 and for FTC since 2014. Dave was also a founding member of the Trisonics.

During the day, Dave is a professional mathematician teaching courses at our local university, Grand Valley State University.

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Dale Van Lopik
Fabrication Mentor

Dale Van Lopik has been with our FRC team since the creation in 2012. He works with our students in fabrication and is also the main mentor that works with the build team. Dale was also a Mentor on the Holland team with Chad for a few years and joined our team when it was founded.Outside of Robotics, Dale works at Knoll as a Manufacturing Engineer and enjoys sailing.

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Doug Diephouse
Assistant Design Mentor

Doug has been a part of the TriSonics and HexaSonics since 2017. He works at JR Automation, who has been one of our sponsors for many years. He works in pricing there, and helps out with the design subteam. He is very ready and willing to help wherever is needed.   

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Justin Buist
Assistant Programming Mentor

Justin has been with the TriSonics for a few years now. He works with our programming team and helps in teaching students the basics of Java! Justin also leads the development of our scouting software. 

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Kyle Flynn
Assistant Programming Mentor

Kyle has been with the team for several years. He started mentoring in 2017 when he started college at GVSU. Kyle is also an alumni of 3618 from Petoskey and the lead FIRST Technical Advisor for the state of Michigan.
Graduating from GVSU in 2020, Kyle has spent the last few years as a software engineer in the autonomous vehicle industry. During his free time, Kyle also is the CTO for his non-profit The Orange Alliance.

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Tom Zuniga
Build and Design Mentor

Tom is new to the TriSonics team this year. He is a Co-owner and Project Leader for E3, which is also one of our new sponsors this year. His background is in Architecture, Structural Engineering and Water filtration systems. Although robotics is new to him, he enjoys helping and guiding the students wherever needed.

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