[Meandmyself]

There's definetely a difference between repeated ramming with the intent to deal damage and backing up then moving forward again to avoid the ten second pinning penalty. I would think it would come down to the ref's opinion on what the intent is, whether to destroy or to pin for a few seconds.
Another thing, FIRST is not basketball. Contact is perfectly legal, and using your robot's superior torque to push another robot away from a goal is also perfectly legal. There are some bots who do this well, and there are other bots who are high speed, low torque and all they can do is hope to ram into a bot enough to keep it from scoring. The first type is perfectly valid, the second has no place in Gracious Profesionallism.