Dilema...

[Elgin Clock]

Hello and Welcome to FIRST (hopefully).

All 1500 or so teams in FIRST were rookies at one point or another. That should give you some comfort.
As many have mentioned before, ChiefDelphi.com is a great resource for all your questions during the intense six weeks of building, and throughout the year.
Since you have knowledge of pneumatics and programming, you are halfway there.
The other half (robot construction) can be kept as simple as you want, or you can come up with some one of a kind devices for your robot. For the true rookie experience, it may be best to start with the premade chassis that FIRST introduced to the kit of parts last year.
Many teams have used this, and have done very well with it.
Sometimes it's not what fancy bells and whistles you can include on your robot, but how you use what you have.

As for what you can expect for the actual kickoff event, and also to have a glimpse into that premade chassis I was talking about earlier, you can check out the archived webcast of the 2003 kickoff here:
http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/webcasts/kickoff.htm

Originally Posted by Billfred

As for previous supplies, don't sweat it--it might help in building faster, but they've got the same limits as you (usually the kit plus $3000 in extra stuff, but that's subject to change).

As for the previous supplies, no team is allowed to re-use old parts. The only thing we can do is make new parts based on the old ideas, and potentially improve them.

The only thing I see as all the Israeli teams being at a disadvantage to the rest of the rookies, is the fact that no one has done this type of thing in Israel, and thus no one can (physically) come to your aid if you happen to get in a pinch (unless some nicely funded teams from the US, UK, or Brazil want to use some frequent flyer miles and fly you out a mentor from an existing team).

BUT, as also stated before, your team is already at an advantage from the rest of the Israeli teams, in that you have signed up and are communicating with the rest of the FIRST community by posting here.

With that said; I hope you decide to join FIRST, wish you good luck, and offer the help from myself, and all the rest of the ~5,000 active members on this forum.