Boilerside and Loadingstationside

Hi Chief Delphi,

I’ve had some strategy discussions so far in which people have thrown around some ambiguous terminology. This year’s field is different from the fields most years in that its ends are mirror images of each other. This means that pre-match strategizing using the terms “left” and “right”, as well as “Player Station 1” and “Player Station 3” should be discouraged. “Left” means closer to the loading stations for the red alliance, but means closer to the boilers for the blue alliance.

Many fields of science and engineering have less ambiguous terms to describe relative direction and location:

Some from the nautical field:

  • fore
  • aft
  • port
  • starboard

Some from anatomy and related fields:

  • dorsal
  • ventral
  • anterior
  • posterior
  • proximal
  • distal

Maybe for clarity and brevity, some common terminology should be used?

“Red Left” == “Blue Right” == Loadingstationside
“Red Right” == “Blue Left” == Boilerside

If your team wants to do a Michigan Left, though, you’re probably on your own. :yikes:

I think boilerside and loadingstationside are pretty unambiguous,

That’s even better than a jughandle!

How about “loadingside” rather than “loadingstationside”? Much easier to say.

There’s also heraldry: dexter and sinister. Seems oddly appropriate to the steampunk theme…

I don’t think it’s revealing any confidences to say that the ref stations are labelled Red and Blue Boiler and Red and Blue Retrieval.

Can’t wait for the competing “Boiler Side!” vs. “Retreival Side!” chants, ala “Blue Alliance”/“Red Alliance”.