Materials:
The primary materials for the project will be VCRs, or Video Cassette Recorders. Inside these you will find DC (Direct Current) motors, switches, potentiometers (variable resistors), stepper motors, sheet metal, gears, pulleys, plastic, and lots of other good stuff. Older machines will also have an easily separable power supply. The older ones will have more "off the shelf" or standard components, while newer VCRs will have more specially designed integrated circuits, and fewer materials in general. Older will give you more options.

Process:
Look - Examine what the device you have is made of before you start taking it apart. Look for markings, processes that it is supposed to perform, components that it is made of, circuit design mechanical system design.
Scrap - Take a few things off of it. GTry to remove whole systems whenever possible. This will help you to use them later. First use just your fingers, a phillips head screwdriver and some thought about how it could be used if it came off in one piece. Any time you are prying or otherwise breaking materials, make sure you wear safety goggles. Permanent vision loss is no picnic. When you get to the point that you need individual elements off a circuit board, set up a safe workstation for using the soldering iron. Heat the soldered joints while you rock the device off the circuit board. Save the parts you get so that you can use them later.
Test - Motors are a good early scrap. You can tell most of what a motor is by looking at the numbers of wires leading to it. DC motors will have two wires entering the housing. Positive and negative, reverse the flow and the motor will turn backwards. Stepper Motors are a bit more complex, and will have more wires, because they have more windings to the motor. To control the stepper motor, you will have to send a sequence of electrical pulses to the windings.
Dream - What could you build out of this thing and its parts? How could you rearrange the parts so that they can serve a new purpose? Plan it out in words and pictures. Draw schematic diagrams of your circuits. Make construction diagrams by hand or in CAD. Give your dreams some form.
Gather - Information Where are you going to find the information that you need to fulfil your dream of what can be done? Find other people who have attempted to make a thing like what you are aiming for and see how they did it. As you look, save a list of what you found and where, this will come in handy for your documentation. Save complete web addresses. Printing web pages with the address in the header or footer makes it easy to find the page again. Keep written notes of what you find and what you need. These notes will help you think the problem through, and will help you in the documentation phase. Below you will see some web links for information on electronics and related stuff.
Gather - Parts You may need supplies for testing and building such as gator clips, breadboard or other things. Speak up and either your classmates or your instructor will help you get what you need. Any significant components must come out of the waste stream. If it was usable before it came to you, don't use it for this project. The transfer station is a goldmine for parts for this project.

Build: Gather all your materials, information and tools. Build to your design. You may need to make several revisions of an idea before it works the way you want. You should make a controller for the three motors and other devices you will have on your construction. Think of the way that you will use these motors and components, and design to their new tasks.

Links:
Beam Robotics Circuits page - http://www.beamrobotics.com/library/circuits/default.htm
Solarbotics/BEAM Robotics http://www.solarbotics.net/library.html
Electronic Hobbyist - http://www.amasci.com/amateur/elehob.html
Junkyard wars - http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/junkyard/junkyard.html
Junkyard Wars Library - http://school.discovery.com/networks/junkyardwars/library.html Teched Electricity Links - https://www.angelfire.com/ma4/teched/courses/electricity/resources/index.htm

Simple Machines:
Inventors workshop - http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/InventorsWorkshop.html
Intro to simple machines - http://www.smartown.com/sp2000/machines2000/main.htm
Marvelous Machines - http://www.galaxy.net/~k12/machines/index.shtml