Soundboard

My friends and I have a handful of 3-second sound clips, and we want to build a board with buttons for each sound. Theoretically, it would be a bunch of buttons, and when we push one it would play the corresponding 3-second clip.
I have little experience with electronics, but what would be the best way to build this?

Thanks.

Does it have to be hardware? I wrote a perl script a few years ago that does exactly what you're talking about. If I remember correctly, you could assign up to 100 buttons different .wav files. I'd be happy to give it to you.

I'm really looking for a physical version, but I'd love to try your script. Thanks!

This product should do what you need and is ready assembled, if you ask when ordering they can put in a variation of the firmware that will play 8 sounds based on 8 different buttons.
TalkBotBrain - Robot Controllers.

Bam,

Here's the soundbox script. I had to zip it because I couldn't figure out how to attach a .pl file if it is possible to do so at all. The first time you run it, it will create a text file called "sound_box.config". This is where all the information on button assignments and paths to .wav files will be stored for future runs of the script. Make sure that this .config file and the .pl file remain in the same directory. Once, you have run the script, you can assign sounds to buttons, rename buttons, increase/decrease the number of buttons, etc by going to Settings>Configure Buttons. I remembered wrong before when I said you could have up to 100 buttons, it is only 64. Also, it only works with .wav files and I have only tested it with Win XP and ActivePerl 5.8. It should work with later versions but I haven't tested it. Enjoy.