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Team Mentors

Our TriSonics Mentors

Headshot of Chad

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 2010 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.
chad@allendalerobotics.com
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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.
DDiephouse@jrautomation.com
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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!
Aaron.dana@ambassadorsupply.com
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Dale Van Lopik

Fabrication Mentor

Dale Van Lopik is the Fabrication Mentor and has been with the FRC Team – 4003 since it’s inception in 2012. Dale and Chad worked together on the Holland Chaos Team for a number of seasons until Chad convinced Dale to join him in the creation of the new Allendale team. Outside of Robotics, Dale works at Miller-Knoll in Muskegon as the Sr. Manufacturing Engineer, and in his spare time enjoys sailing and camping.
dale_vanlopik@knoll.com
Headshot of Ethan P.

Ethan Potinsky

Design Mentor

Ethan is a new design mentor on the Trisonics. He had been a student in the Allendale Robotics programs for 9 years before that: 3 years in FLL with DROID, 2 years in FTC with the HexaSonics, team 7023, and 4 years in FRC with the Trisonics. After graduating high school in 2019, Ethan pursued a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at Michigan Technological University. After graduating from MTU in 2023, Ethan began his career at Gentex Corporation as a Product Design Engineer.
ejpotins@mtu.edu
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Tom Zuniga

Assistant 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.
tom.zuniga@e3integrated.com
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Tammy VanKampen

Sponsorship Mentor

Tammy VanKampen is a homeschool mom of 1, and has been actively involved in helping coach teams with Allendale robotics since 2015, when her daughter started in Junior FLL. Now, she enjoys helping mentor the Sponsorship sub-team with the TriSonics. She is grateful for the opportunity to work with the other amazing mentors and students that makes this team thrive year after year!
tammyvk73@gmail.com
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Tonya Dowd

Female Mentor for The Girls

Tonya Dowd coordinates all of the food for our competitions and Saturday lunches. She also schedules our hotels for our competitions and anything that needs to be done behind the scenes. She is also am a female mentor for the girls and anything they need.
jdowd5153@gmail.com
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Kyle Flynn

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.
kyle.flynn5798@yahoo.com
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James Dowd

Programming Mentor

James has been with the Trisonics since 2015 helping mentor programming and controls, and assisting my wife in being “team mom”. I’m a retired chemical engineer with a bit of a background in control system integration. As a father of 4, all of my kids have been in the program and our family loves Allendale Robotics!
jdowd5152@gmail.com
Headshot of Ethan D.

Ethan Dowd

Programming team and Wiring team

Ethan is a recent graduate of Michigan State University, with a degree in Electrical Engineering and a Minor in Computer Science. I’m a Trisonics alumni, this will be my first year mentoring the Programming team and Wiring team.
enddowd5154@gmail.com
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Justin Buist

Programming Mentor

Justin has been with the TriSonics since 2015. During the day he is a stay at home dad and part time student at GVSU. Justin spends his time with TriSonics students teaching them to program our robots, scouting applications, and data analytics tools. That should do.
justin.buist@gmail.com
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Elijah Hagber

Programming Mentor

Elijah was a member of both the Hexasonics and Trisonics as a programming member and returned as a mentor in 2023 to help out with both programming and wiring. Elijah is also an FTA for both FTC and FRC.
ehagberg@ehagberg.com

About Us

Allendale Robotics is a robotics program located in Allendale, MI. Our goal is to provide quality programs for all students grades K-12. On our teams, younger students are coached by parent volunteers and out older age students are mentored by professionals that teach them the fundamentals of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics programs. We hold our students to the highest standards, and value community outreach and volunteer work. We equip our students with the knowledge to succeed after high school in whatever career choice they choose. If your student loves to learn and is always curious – an Allendale Robotics program may be the right fit for them!

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