I highly, highly recommend that you take a look at Karthik's
Effective FIRST Strategies presentation. It's very informative, and even veteran teams have learned a lot from it.
As you guys are a rookie team, I suggest you do two things in particular:
1) Reach out to teams
in your area. Most teams are more than happy to help and discussing ideas and direction with a local veteran can often not only bring perspective, but a valuable contact who can offer you hands-on assistance in the midst of the havoc of build season.
2) Focus on the MCC that Karthik mentions - the minimum competitive concept. No matter how good a robot is, games are still 3 v 3 - you have to think about how you're going to play the game. Remember, you're designing a robot for the game, not forcing a robot to play a game. Ultimately, the robot you build will determine what you can and can't do - continued iteration and strategy can take you far, but only if you have a robot to get there.
-edit- I just noticed that you guys are actually also in New York. Please, do not hesitate to PM me or other members of Stuypulse or other teams in the area.