Just like any competition there are rules. Rules are set into place for fair play. If you are on a team that competes at any competition, you need to know and read all of the rules. In this case, it was not robotics, but was college basketball. http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/St-Mary-s-receives-technical-for-dunking-in-pre?urn=ncaab,147054 Very interesting and just proves the point that you need to read the rules. 
It was funny sitting there at Applebee’s the other night, and watching bits of the pregame, without hearing it. I noticed the other team take the two technical foul shots, and then glanced back up to see the opening tip? Sort of like the 15 yard personal foul for the opening kickoff in foolball. In short, very good point. As a mentor, I am stressing the rules to the drive team, but hopefully they won’t cause any penalties.:ahh:
From my experience in Boston… you should stress the rules to the payload specialist in the outpost. No hands on the robot!
Very important, any contact with the trailer/robot and the payload specialists tongs is a red card/DQ.
Reminds me of last years neverending stream of people (especially refs!) who didn’t know some of the rules of Overdrive.
points to SVR thread from last year
At the Kettering District, the vast majority of penalties were on the human players:
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The outpost player allowing their hand to go through he porthole when entering an empty cell.
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The outpost player entering an empty cell over the wall, not through the porthole.
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Coaches (Commanders) entering the fueling station area owned by the opposite alliance.
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Human players not using the tongs to pick up balls.
The most common (and most easily preventable) penalty I saw was outpost players throwing the empty cell over the wall instead of through the hole. There was probably anywhere from 30-35 of these penalties called at the regional I attended and once a HP committed 4 such penalties during a single match. The other penalty I saw a good amount of was harvesting more then one empty cell at a time. This one can be much harder to prevent since the moon rocks and empty cells look very similar from a distance if your not looking carefully. Make sure your drive team and HP know all the rules before they go on the field because penalties can cost your team the match.
From extreme in Alex’s example leading off this thread, to just plain dumb rules shown here, you still have to be aware of the rules no matter what:
http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=922635