Welcome Kevin.
First thing: youre not stupid. Youre actually asking intelligent questions and have obviously already formed serious ideas. Thats very very nice.

Wait for the guys to recover from having fallen off their chairs before they can start giving you answers. You must have taken them by surprise.

Sorry I cant help you, but for the spinner part. They have been popular when Robot Wars was still on TV because of the destructability involved. When the tv shows ended and the roboteers turned to live shows this popularity quickly ended due to safety reasons (not every arena is strong enough to contain a spinner and the damages it can inflict) and the lack of willing adversaries (when you want to compete once a month you dont have the money and time to completely rebuild your robot again so you tend to avoid the nasty ones).

These days we go for spectacular fights but with the least structural damage as possible, and flippers are the most favourite weapons now I guess. Thwack-bots are also nice (no moving weapon, the robot IS the weapon). Your initial choice for a scrimech/flipper will not be boring at all... what counts is how well you master this technical challenge and we stand ready to admire the accomplished.
You have good ideas lad. Keep on working !