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Originally Posted by Elgin Clock
OK, I'll be the one to say it.
In a competition where the underlying basis is the reward of millions in scholarships, life long learning experiences, and the joy of working together as a team there is one flaw.
Yes, the penalties.
In a microcosm such as FIRST where the goal is the reward of learning about science & technology the game structure totally contradicts the whole big picture.
What is instead of penalizing teams, we support them, by rewarding teams match by match who don't do something to merit a current penalty.
C'mon, this negative reinforcement has got to stop in a group who's goal is to inspire and reward such things as creative thinking and the knowledge you gain..
At least if it doesn't stop this year, then for next year don't make penalties as big a part of the competition that it has become this year.
<steps off of soapbox - for now...>
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As nice as the idea is, it's darn near impossible to carry out. Finding teams that don't do anything "bad" during a match would rely much more on perspective than the penalties ever could. Penalties can be defined and can be assessed in a relatively exact way; there isn't a way to define good behavior that comes to mind.
More importantly, rewarding good behavior is essentially the exact opposite of a penalty. If you give ten points to Alliance A instead of taking ten from Alliance B, the result is still a ten point shift in favor of Alliance A. If you were to go further and attempt to spell out what constitutes the good behavior - which is really the only fair way I can think of to do it - the system is essentially penalties in reverse.
Keeping it simpler for the referees to assess and for the audience to follow is the best method to take. I like the idea and I agree with you that it would be nice, but I just don't see how it could work.