As I learn more about the tools available, I am sure that one idea will seem most feasible as a final project for this course than others. Most of the things listed here are in some way related to expression (the basis of our need for communication technologies) and all require some sort of wireless transmission/reception.
Imagine having many picture frames with a substrate in it where one may go up and mold it or draw on it in a certain way and the result will show up in all those that are subscribed to the original picture frame. In some sense, this could be used as a expressive device or as a art piece reflecting the work of collaborative artists who might not even know each other.
I am not particularly familiar with materials but perhaps there is something that can be easily etched and erased. Using sensors, perhaps it is possible to recieve input and transmit that to another frame where the information can be processed and reproduced.
After visiting and chatting with some fellow Media Lab students at a picnic, we came across along this idea for eerie stressballs. In this scenario, we might distribute many of these stress balls to any number of people. When one person squeezes one stress ball, the mechanical signals might broadcast to all the other stress balls and cause them to contort in the same way on the desks or in the hands of many colleagues. Thus, a subtle and expressive piece might be a fun novelty if it can be fabricated in this course. On the other hand, any number of more serious extensions might be drawn from such an example piece.
Some approaches to fabricating such a piece will definitely involve a wireless transmitter and reciever in the core. It would involve some tactile sensors to sense the pressure of the "transmitting" stress ball and mechanisms in the "recieving" stress ball to contort in the same manner. Building two nodes that can send and recieve signals would be a good starting point.