Team Mentors

Dale Van Lopik is the Fabrication Mentor and has been with the FRC Team – TriSonics 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 Zeeland as the Sr. Manufacturing Engineer, and in his spare time enjoys sailing and camping.

Ethan is a 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.

Tom joined the TriSonics team in 2022. He is a Co-owner and Project Leader for E3, which is also one of our sponsors. 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.

Trevor is a new mentor to the team but a veteran of the program. Trevor has been with the program for 11 years through Jr FLL, FLL, FTC, and FRC. He is a sophomore at Ferris State University studying Manufacturing Engineering. He uses those skills helping the Design and Build sub teams.

Tonya coordinates meals for the team as well as hotel room occupancy. She is the notary of the team to officially accept members every year. She supports the team in whatever ways she can, whether up front or behind the scenes.

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!

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.

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.

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.