The Trinity Tribots were founded in 2012 by a small group of students. With the guidance of their physics teacher, Dr. David O’Hanley, the Tritons (now known as the Tribots) became a community where students could join together to expand their knowledge and be unafraid of failure. Nevertheless, the team experienced many failures, which quickly grew into successes as the Tritons won both the Minnesota Northern Lights Regional and the Minnesota State Championship in 2015! More important than any placement in a competition, the team managed to provide an opportunity for young minds to grow in creativity, teamwork, courage, resilience, and problem solving. 

Unfortunately, the team suffered the loss of Dr. O’Hanley in 2019 after his struggle with lung cancer, as well as the loss of a parent mentor, Dave True the following year. During their time of need, parents and alumni united to support the team. Aaron Telander, founding member and team captain in 2015, returned as coach for 2 years. Aaron then passed the torch along to Dominic Mak, an electrical engineer (and combat robotics event organizer) and another founding member of the team. We also gained the support of Casey Jeremiason, who has lots of experience in robotics, gives us lots of invaluable knowledge, and continues to work with the team today.

In 2022, the Tribots experienced a fresh start by graduating from a small science classroom to their own dedicated robotics room! Another new aspect that year was that the team consisted almost entirely of new members. With a new space, fresh minds, new and returning mentors as well as a former team captain as a mentor, we were very excited to see what we could do.

After the 2024 season, Dominic passed the torch onto his father, Brian Mak. He is our current head coach, along with Laurie Barreto. Both Brian and Laurie are parents of a student on the team. Many other mentors have come and gone, all of whom have given us lots of support and knowledge. One of our current mentors is Laura Mak, a former team captain and the daughter of our head coach. We are very excited to see where our team will go in the upcoming years!