The idea for this project came from my wife, as most of my more irreverent projects do. As with many who suffer from ADHD, I sometimes get "in the zone" and become oblivious to what's going on around me. This sometimes prompts my wife to have to say my name several times before I respond (IF I respond), and sometimes that devolves into her just saying "DUDE!"
She joked "I need a big red button I can push that makes something say DUDE for me", and I replied flippantly "I can do that!" And.....a project was born.
Now, I recognize this could have been done with off the shelf parts, but what's the fun in that? I decided to make it a PCB design project, where I could hone my nascent PCB design skills. After all, you only get better through repetition and finding what works and what doesn't. So I set out to design it.
The concept is pretty simple: An ESP32 MCU to drive it, an SDCard slot for an SDCard (with sound files, presumably), an i2s integrated circuit for playing audio (including the ability to play MP3s) and an amp to boost output power beyond 1W (4W approximately), a small display to display info and a comically large lit red arcade button. The speaker is a small 4W speaker, loud enough to be heard but not overpowering by any stretch.
The hardware arrived and looks great - and most importantly a bench test of the components found everything working as expected.
I'll work on cleaning up the files and then open source the design files for anyone who wants to build their own (should anyone want to do so).