[EricH]

John, before you think poorly of the penalties this year (a little late, I know), there was a rule in 2005 that was far, far worse.

Starting at the beginning here: There were 8 triangular "loading zones" on the field, 4 per alliance. Teams "in" the zones were protected, much like a hurdler is this year. This was due to safety issues.

Problem #1: the definition of "in the zone" changed repeatedly. Eventually, it was "anything touching the zone is in" and stayed that way. I think this was somewhere around Week 1, maybe a little later.

Problem #2: any contact with a robot retrieving scoring objects in the zone was a 30-point penalty.

Oh, and scores were lower that year, comparatively.

This meant that contacting a robot in the loading zone was almost a sure guarantee of losing the match.

It's better this year, though not by much. At least the refs don't have to decide whether to give 30 points or 10 points in penalties (yes, there were two different point values in 2005! 30 points as above, and 10 points for anything else).

I'm not trying to put a positive light on this, just show that there have been worse penalties in the past.