I'd say both ends of the opinions here are right. You will benefit hugely from building something simple and putting it in the ring to understand the physics involved. The bent m20 bolt that was mentioned was on the front of our robot. We're still learning by the millisecond, a year down the line and barely beyond our second robot. The other thing that matters, though, is to not discourage. Don't think the only way in this hobby is to build like the masses. Without people with wacky ideas we wouldn't have our hobby at all.

With that said, please go and build something weird and wonderful. If you're prepared to learn from it if it goes wrong then everything is to gain.