You might want to bounce some ideas off of BlueCat when he returns from his vacation. He's working on an OpenGL engine too (using SDL) so you should be able to swap ideas.

Being devil's advocate for a second, I'd say that, without care, you're likely to end up with a tech demo rather than an interesting game. Prove me wrong! Think up an interesting plot and keep it in mind (possibly involving exploding, kamikaze bunnies that chase you through an abandoned zoo. Or not). Get the plot done now rather than trying to shoehorn it in later.

Wish you the best of luck - you have the right idea (grabbing other folk to form a team). The fact that you've heard of the technologies, let alone want to use them, is enough to show that you have a clue .