[jasonbrooks]

I have to agree with the FRC view on penalties. The most important thing to consider when preparing to win a game like Bowled Over is that ranking is not only determined by Qualifying Points, but also by Ranking Points. Even if you win each of 5 matches during game play, this doesn't mean that you will be ranked first if another team has a higher score from teams that lost to them.

For example, lets say I happen to win all five matches and get my 10 qualifying points. There may be 4 or 5 other teams that also do that at any given competition. However, if those teams won to teams who also had high scores, they get more ranking points.

We, at one point during this season, considered scoring points for the opposing alliance. Why? To get more ranking points. If we are certain that we are going to win (for example lifting a crate up 10 feet while the other team hasn't even attempted to get a crate), we may consider bringing their bowling ball up the ramp. Even though this may seem foolish, it is inadvertently helping our team significantly. We may also consider going as far as to help score balls in an opposing alliances crate. If we know that we get, for example, 350 points for lifting a crate 11 feet in the air, it doesn't matter if we score for them 100 points my mass depositing balls into crates for them (pending enough time of course).

After all of that, I must say that we still do not intend on purposely getting penalties. I think its more of scoring points for them. Trying to break one penalty may ultimately lead to disqualification which would be terrible. In fact, one person on our team even joked the other day that after lifting up crates, they are going to walk onto the field to get the other teams just enough points to lose right underneath us. However, this would lead to us being disqualified.

Ultimately, it IS DEFINITELY IMPORTANT to weigh out different strategies, and one of these may be to get penalties, another may be to score for the other team. But at the end of the day, a team like ours must make sure we don't do something stupid and disqualify ourselves in the process.