Thanks for your really thurough input, I feel now the flipper should still achieve enough force to self right the robot, I've included an image so you know what I'm going on about.



You said I would need 2 ESC's, would they be connected to each other at all, or would they only share the receiver?

EDIT: The pic looks confusing, black is the flipper, red is mechanic and yellow is armoury stuff. My idea was to have pipes leading from the safety holes in the piston leading out like an exhaust, which would be cool looking when the Co2 was released, but another question relating to that, in robot combat you can see the Co2 when the flippers go, but I thought you couldn't see it? (Co2)