[KenWittlief]

I thought chicken wire was made for chickens?

You dont want people calling your creation the ChickenBot, do you?

Seriously though, unless two robots are completely covered on all sides by body panels (like a car + panels underneath) you can crash just about ANY two bots together and something will get tangled in something (wires, chains, hoses, cables, pulleys, grabbers). Its very difficult to build a completely enclosed robot.

Chicken wire in the right places, more on the inside of the bot where its not subjected to being snagged by anything that brushes against the side of your robot - that would be better than nothing. Keep in mind the only place that robots ARE allowed to make contact with each other is bumper to bumper! Im sure you are not thinking of designing chicken wire bumpers.

One problem with chicken wire is that its hard to properly attach. You cant just put one screw in each corner - you would need to design a frame to hold panels in place.

The easiest thing to use is alum sheet metal: easy to cut, easy to attach, very strong, takes paint nicely, and you can get away with one screw in each corner to hold it in place.