On Sunday, April 19, 2015 at 12:18:43 AM UTC-4, Ignoramus4444 wrote:
Video and some details are here.

http://www.machinerymoverschicago.com/blog/Robocross/

Most people go the easy route and buy a "Vex Robotics" kit. We built
our own and won.

This robot works like a skid steer. The bucket, I made sharp as a
knife and sharpened it to make it a straight and sharp blade, on a
surface grinder.

i

Excellent!, and in the third picture, you can clearly see a minor injury to his left thumb. He's well on his way to becoming a tool junkie.

To get the cable more flexible, you could strip off the outer jacket, remove whatever strings are inside, and braid (a little bit loosely) the wires together. Another advantage of that is that you end up with a cool multi-color cable.

So what's next? Drop in an arduino & joystick and do proportional control? Drop an arduino in each end, add some RF and do away with the cable altogether?
-or-
Just build a bigger one? The learning possibilities are endless.