Lessons learned 2005: The negative

[Spikey]

Not a lot of gripes, most have been stated already but from what I noticed that on the Newton field the refs were being very stingy with penalties. I saw a lot of things happen that would have been called a penalty at a regional, but they did not make the call at Newton field, especially tipping!
Not to harp on penalties again but the 30 point penalty for hitting a robot is a little extreme, especially when its unintentional. We were in the QF at Newton and as we were backing up from a goal we brushed a robot in the loading zone, 30 point penalty, it was not malicious, it did not endanger the human player, its hard to see all the way on the other side of the field. The penalty cost our alliance the match and I don't like the idea of penalties being that severe. When they had floppies and HP interaction with robots they had very few penalties at all and at most they were 10 point penalties. When the penalties cost as many as 10 tetras it becomes unproductive, and makes the game less exciting.
Maybe FIRST should reconsider how much weight the penalties are given. Other then that I had a lot of fun