Why radio machine?

Ok so here is the rationale behind radio machine in a round about way:
1. My research interests are about "teaching and learning" in design and not "what" is designed - this means that I can legitimize design activities that are a bit abnormal (if there is a normal side to industrial design) because I am focussing on "ways" that experiences can be reconstructed as "meaning" and therefore "knowledge".
2. I am really interested in social action - people getting together and doing something that is collective for individual reasons - like you guys are doing.
3. I have a thing for noise machines and pirate communications (or more precisley: people deciding that "media technology" is their territory of people and community, not just corporations / commercial entities)
4. Designing machines that interrelate with other machines is a way of introducing you to the idea that whatever you design it never exists in isolation - it is, like you, always something in the world - always effecting and affected by, other "things". Nothing is independent - in any true sense.
5. I like the idea that you (as first year students) can make an impact to a broader and "unknown" populace - and radio is one way of doing this. Your work can be experienced in some very real way by other people.
6. I believe in the democratization of "knowledge", I believe in ideas being freely accessable.
7. I believe that "design" can make the world a better place.
8. I believe that the act of designing is not simply an act of technical and economic problem solving - it is personal, it is reflective and most importantly it is for other people, and therefore it is an act of cultural production / contribution.
9. I love the challenge of a project that could very easily amount to failure - the radio machine may not work, you may not learn etc.
10. Design is about making and solving tough problems - radio machine is deeply problematic (on many levels).

We have four weeks - lets make it wild!