Engineering Club History

Our team, Bovine Intervention, was started at Linganore High School in 2000 by Matthew Lincoln. He was a math teacher at Linganore and wanted to give students a chance to be more involved with new technologies. The team is currently advised by Mr. Bergeron, a teacher at Linganore.

Over the years we have spent time mentoring middle and elementary school students at various feeder schools of LHS. We have helped them with projects and spread the word about FIRST to get the interest in FIRST started at a young age. We have competed in many regional competitions including the Chesapeake, Pittsburg, New York City and NASA/VCU Regional and many others. At the Chesapeake Regional in 2003 we placed third during the Finals. We have also gone to the National Competition in 2004, in Atlanta, and 2002, in Florida.

Many of our students have graduated and gone on to attend some great engineering and technology schools. Some of these schools are Penn State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech, University of Virginia, University of Maryland, and WPI. We are very proud of the students who when they graduate are able to take what they have learned in the FIRST program and use it to accomplish their dreams after High School.


Team 686’s first robotic effort was building "Botler" in 2001. Team 686 was lucky enough to secure a place to work, NASA funding, and a spot in the last available regional (Long Island) just in time for the 2001 build season. The robot featured a retractable grabbing arm, and treads for scaling field obstacles. The programming and electronics were a little finicky, but with few adjustments and a little help from Woodie Flowers, "Botler" achieved the goals the team wanted to accomplish.

"Botler"

Team 686’s 2002 robot, "Bessie", utilized many experiences learned from the previous year. The robot was again treaded, but had more powerful motors. Using the extra power, "Bessie" pulled around heavy wheeled goals while simultaneously picking up and scoring soccer balls. This robot saw team 686's first national competition held in Orlando, Florida. This year also saw the introduction of the team's name, "Bovine Intervention", and the cow theme, both inspired by the locale of the school.

"Bessie"

2003's "Daisy” was one of the most successful robots created by our team. The bot was capable of stacking plastic containers, and more importantly, knocking them over (using the wings shown in the photo). The most notable aspect of Daisy was the drive system, capable of winning almost every 'king of the hill' battle. "Daisy”

"Daisy"

In 2004, our team created "Sir Loin" to compete at the Annapolis Regional and the Championship in Atlanta. This robot was capable of driving up a 6" step and able to pull itself off the ground from a horizontal bar 10 feet in the air. If "Sir Loin" flipped over at any point in the match, it was able to use its arm to push itself back up.

"Sir Loin"

"Patty" was the club's 2005 competition robot. It was designed to stack small PVC tetrahedrons (called "tetras") onto larger aluminum tetra goals. At the Pittsburgh Regional, "Patty" performed very well defensively and helped our team become a playoff Alliance Captain. Team 686 also competed at the Annapolis Regional with the robot.

"Patty"

The club's 2006 robot, "Heifer," featured a machine-pitch style shooter used to shoot Nerf balls into a goal 10 feet off the ground. The camera shown in the photo shown helped the robot aim towards the target, although it was removed before competitions due to its pyrotechnic tendencies. "Heifer" competed at the Annapolis Regional at the Naval Academy and at Championships in Atlanta, Georgia.

"Heifer"

Team 686's 07' robot literally shifted into high-gear with its 2-speed, 4WD drive system. The robot featured a dual pivot-point arm with a rotating pneumatic grabber for picking up ringers. An on-board camera allowed the robot to score in autonomous mode. It competed at the Annapolis Regional competition.

Note: although the team did compete in 2008, information for that season is currently unavailble. Sorry!

07 Robot

In 2009, troubles were present from the beginning, as our team struggled to get enough money to buy the parts kit. the game that year was called Lunacy. To celebrate the 40th aniversery of Apollo 11's landing on the moon, FIRST created a game that simulated low gravity using a regalith playing surface combined with low-traction wheels. Robots were grouped into three-robot alliances for each match. All robots pulled a trailer on their robot and would attempt to shoot or dump nine-inch balls into the trailers on the opposing robots. Each ball landed in an enemy trailer wsa 2 points, except for a few special balls reserved for the last 15 seconds. These were worth 15 points. The first 15 seconds were completely autonomous, and the rest was teleoperated. Due to our robot, "Mad Cow", lacking a shooter capable of long-distance shots and our lack of a functional autonomous mode, we did not perform well. Out of 55 teams, we came in 53rd.

"Mad Cow"

Financial difficulties continued the next year. Although not as desperate as 2009, we had issues getting the required money in time. The game for 2010 was called Breakaway. The game closely resembled soccer in many aspects. Like 2009, the match started autonomous before switching to teleoperated. Once again, our autonomous failed to function. In the last 20 seconds, teams could hang their robots from the central towers to gain bonus points. The field was separated into 3 sections by steep bumps with a low and narrow tunnel for robots incapable of crossing the bumps(like ours). Unlike 2009, our robot, "Fillet", had great success. Early on, we realized that our pneumatic kicker was too weak and ineffective to help. We used this knowledge plus the fact that our robot was faster and more maneuverable (due to special "mechanum" wheels) than any competitor to conclude that our robot was built for defense. We would score occaisionally, but most of our efforts went into blocking the other alliance from scoring while the other two members of our alliance did the scoring. We rose as high as third in the standings (the highest in team history) before falling back to 20th. We were chosen by the third seed to join them in the elimination rounds. Our alliance advanced to the semifinals before being eliminated.

"Fillet"

The 2011 Game was called LogoMotion. The main objective was to hang tubes in the shapes of the FIRST logo, a triangle, a circle, and a square, on a rack of pegs. In autonomous, teams hang special tubes that can double the value of tubes placed over them. Bonuses can also be achieved by forming the FIRST logo. At the end portion of the match, teams could deploy a miniature robot onto a ten foot pole for more bonus points. The minibot that climbs first gets the most points. Our robot, "Medium Rare", had a simple arm that moved in an arc around the robot and grabbed with a pneumatic clamp. It also had a drawbridge-style minibot deployment system for our minibot, "Well-Done". Unfortunately, we were forced to make major changes at competition. The motors used for the arm and the deployment were not legal parts, and had to be replaced with newer, but weaker, motors. As a result, the robot took a long time to get through inspection and our arm was useless in several early matches. Issues with the minibot included the bot falling off onto the field, and the arm deploying prematurely and impedeing movement. This resulted in the removal of the minibot and deployment arm. The team came together in the face of adversity, but was unable to reach success on the field. We finished 32nd out of 60 teams, and did not advance to the elimination rounds.

"Medium Rare"

"Well Done"