[Oblarg]

Make sure you have a group of people to immediately start working on designing/building mock-up field elements. This is oft-overlooked, and absolutely essential to success. Also be sure to set aside a few people to do inventory with the KOP. Losing parts is no fun.

You should start with brainstorming - your goal for kickoff weekend should be to identify the directions you're going to be heading in during the subsequent week or so of rough prototyping. Try to reign in the scope of the brainstorming. Keep the design process in mind - you cannot design anything until you have design constraints set, so the first talks should always be about strategy, not about robot design. Figure out how to play the game effectively, and then design around the strategy you decide on; you should be thinking about which tasks will be easier/harder to design for, but specific designs should wait.

Of course, in order to talk strategy, the first thing you need to do is read the rules. Front to back. Everyone on the team must do this before participating in the strategy discussion.