Update.
After trawlng through many posts and videos I've shelved the idea of building a basic rambot.
I want my first bot to be memorable build for probably all the wrong reasons. To this end I'm going for a hydraulic claw style robot.
I designed a ram system last night thats not been done before. It may prove futile but it's all about learning.
Have bought a hydraulic powerpack as a starting point. Gonna have a tinker when it arrives and build upon it from there.