Audio Playback Circuit Board

[Brad]

So my father-in-law is building basically a near-life-size pirate ship in his backyard as a play structure for the grandkids. It is going to be amazingly cool. He has asked me if it is possible to wire up a "sound effect" system connected to a couple button "control panels" which would play sounds like a cannon blast, or sailors saying "Land Ho!" or whatever. I told him yes this is possible... so now I have to figure out how to do it so it will be reliable and not crazy expensive.

Been doing a lot of research on sound playing integrated circuits. I would MUCH prefer to buy a completed PCB as opposed to creating my own. Especially as there is the possibility of needing more of these in the future.

So far after an hour of so of googling I haven't been able to find exactly what I am looking for. I've found a couple relatively cheap PCBs which can play back a single 25 second sound either from flash or EPROM. They only are only capable of playing a single sound each though. I did find one PCB which played multiple MP3s. The board only cost like a $1 each too... of course they ship from China and the minimum order is 500 units.

Got any recommendations or suggestions for me?

[Nick]

Raspberry pi? Arduino? PIC chips? For the versatility offered a pi with a cheap touch screen or a panel of buttons might be a good bet. Runs linux and has gpio connectors.

People have made mp3 players with the atmega chips, so an arduino could work too. Slightly cheaper then the pi unless you just get the atmega chips bare.

We just sold a 15 button panel at the garage sale too.

Edit:
They finally seem to have then instock
http://www.newark.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-modb-512m/model-b-assembled-board-only/dp/43W5302
I got mine with free shipping from there a little while back. I would be happy to loan it to you if you want to see if it would work for your purposes. I would also love to help with the project. I have all these toys and no  idea what to do with them

Ooo, got another idea. An old or cheap android tablet/phone with a soundboard app hooked to the speaker system (either wired directly or wireless with a Bluetooth audio adapter ($12)) Use your old droid 2?

[Brad]

Isn't a Rasberry Pi a little over kill to play a couple sound effects? I mean you can buy like $8 toys that can play 10 - 15 sound effects. Of course they are probably stored in some crazy format at some abysmal sampling rate.

It would be a lot of fun to play with though. You could do a lot of cool stuff. Seriously cool stuff for about the same price as a single purpose breakout board.

The thing with with the buttons is they can't be on any sort of a fragile control panel (like a touch screen) they need to be sturdy because they have to be able to be activated by kids.

I would definitely welcome any help. I don't have a lot of experience dealing with complicated stuff like microprocessors.

The pirate ship is going to be finishing being put together next week so they'd like to get stuff as soon as they can.

[Brad]

Alright the more I read about Raspberry Pi the more I think I need one. The possibilities man... the possibilities...

[zourtney]

Isn't a Rasberry Pi a little over kill to play a couple sound effects?

Is there anything about the whole idea of building a pirate ship in one's backyard that isn't overkill?

I'd love to play with this stuff too. I heard of some people around here salvaging an old Roomba to become an internet-enabled, drivable home surveillance toy Fun stuff

[Nick]

Processing wise, yeah a pi is overkill. But for the cost it's not that bad. I will look into the atmega option a little more. Those don't gave the power to play multiple sounds, and no having the pirates of the carabian theme playing in the background constantly :-)

[Brad]

Don't research too hard cause I am getting the Rpi. It can do everything and more. Sheez we can set it up to make it do all kinds of crazy stuff. I'd like to get two of them so I can keep one for myself.

I was up till 1am last night looking at other peoples Raspberry Pi projects.

[Nick]

So that's what you were up to. We finally had DC up and running. But it's Ok, the hour we played was mostly star customizing her character :-)

Cool on the Pi. You should order a bluetooth dingle or a use hub too,  helps with the severe lack of usb ports available.

[zourtney]

You should make it control some lighting, too. That would be awesome.

[Brad]

Haha you could do enough stuff to practically make an amusement park ride. I am thinking sounds, lights, fog machine, and the camera that takes your photo as the pirates jump out at you or something.

[zourtney]

Holy cow, that would be awesome!

[Brad]

Raspberry Pi has been ordered.

[Nick]

Just one?

[Brad]

Yep since it was on my father-in-law's credit card. Will probably order more later. If this works out well I think he is going to want one in the tiki room.

[Nick]

What is the tiki room?