When is the penalty for carrying accounted? Would a robot be able to carry if it scored or dropped the ball before the end of the game?
(disclaimer: not an official FIRST answer)
My interpretation is that CARRYING is called as soon as your robot satisfies the definition of CARRYING.
The question you should be asking is, “What is the effect of continuous carrying?” That’s not specified. Although since a CARRY is a double PENALTY, it never makes logical sense to do so, since you will have no better than a net of -1 in your score.