[Kevin Sevcik]

Steve W. I can't agree enough on the robots breaking the plane issue. When the head ref announced that a robot breaking the plane for any reason would be disabled instantly, even if it were pushed there, I was flabbergasted. Especially when he then mentioned that the pushing robot may or may not be disabled. This was nowhere in the rules, and you can't even argue that a robot getting pushed around is operating unsafely. You might as well disable and DQ a robot that gets knocked over and falls out of bounds.

Ryan,

I agree that designing a completely penalty free game is incredibly difficult. It's just an ideal to strive for and judge a game against. Penalties can still be minimized. The loading zones this year obviously necessitated penalties to protect them since they're such obvious defense points. If your game has such obvious points of weakness, they should be removed instead of protected with penalties. If at all possible. To quote the Evil Overlord List: "One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation."