Er. That might be a bit enthusiastic (and I suspect roboteers will get tired of digging sand out of gearboxes quite quickly). I was just thinking of some ramps dotted around the arena - or more specifically, raised areas linked by ramps (think Marble Madness rather than Robot Wars pinball challenge). Nothing so steep that wheeled robots couldnt cope, and maybe not even anywhere which a robot could fall off, but something to stop the race to be lowest to the ground (or at least to make it harder). Spinners would have to be more careful as well.

Kind of scuppers much of the effort on many existing bots, though, and it makes arena construction a bit of a pain - so unless its a rarity as a special extra I dont think itd catch on. If the ramps were removable (which, along with making them able to take a careless spinner hit, makes arena construction even harder) it might be possible to do the occasional special format fight, though.

Some robots wouldnt cope - Storm2 would probably ground itself, and Typhoon2 probably couldnt negotiate a slope either, at least while spun up - but Id have thought Firestorm, Gravity, S3, THz, maybe Razer (with the fifth wheel), Tornado, etc. would handle it quite well. Stinger would excel. :-)

Another of my odd thoughts, anyway - although I think its been discussed before.

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Fluppet