Hi archie2000,

I envisage a timber bot to turn-out reasonably light in weight at least in comparison to a heavy steel box rammer, so grippy wheels may be best. However, as the prime objective is to have some fun with lots of destruction, wheel friction is probably not a particularly important factor.

Given that this inexpensive and quite easy to build wooden class will very likely attract more people into the sport, its also very important IMO to limit damage to the vulnerable and quite expensive drive and control components, so the need for a robust / protective chassis. The cost of building a bot is a prime consideration, especially for young builders and they really don't want everything trashed from the outset!

You raise a good point about pine being strong, so there may be a need to restrict the section size for structural components. Equally, the thickness of any MDF armour could be restricted in the class rules. We could start with a max of 20mm x 20mm for softwood and 10mm for MDF and see how that pans out.

I can see no real reason why this great idea should not be developed into a new exciting robot class.

Hoppy