[Racer26]

From what I saw volunteering at GTREast:

The weight sensors are small load cells that are relatively fragile. They read out in Volts, and the difference between an empty goal, and a fully loaded goal is ~1V.

The scoring system is then calibrated to the sensors. I presume if the sensor breaks, its output slams to the input voltage (5V? 12V? not sure), which explains the readings being orders of magnitude off.