I'd suggest starting on a much simpler project since you don't have very much experience in programming the arudino. Go through some already written program examples on the IDE (Like LED Blink), upload them to your arduino, and hook up some LEDs to a breadboard. Then you can start experimenting with code that is already written and see what happens. After you get a grasp on the various built-in functions, I'm sure you'll be writing working code in no time. It's just that with no board yet, and no arduino experience, you would be best taking out a book on the arduino from the library and doing some programming with the serial monitor instead of trying to figure out if some code is working without the help of actual servos.
Hope this helps. Keep us posted on the project!
Zachary