Ok, I stumbled upon this thread and it caused me to register. I started building a sound board using an Arduino as my prototyping platform
http://www.arduino.cc/
Once I figure out the minimum components, I plan on building a custom board using the same micro controller family as the Arduino uses. Sound can be shifted out on a pulse-width modulation pin using a converted sound file as the source. Then you hook an audio amp to that pin to amplify the signal (you can get the parts at Radioshack) and hook a laptop speaker (they're nice and small) to that. So far I have power up/power down and hum done. I started playing around with a 3-axis accelerometer, but this seems to be overkill if you want a simple swing sound. I've been trying to make the output from the accelerometer dictate pitch of the swing and it's kinda hairy. I have nothing to show for several hours of tinkering with the swing stuff.
Admittedly, I'm a computer science professor that works in robotics, so I'm comfortable with both hardware and software, but it's not that many parts and the programming is basically stuff you can find on the Arduino forums, Make Mag's website, or Hack-A-Day.
Bookmarks