Need Help for what should be an elementary toy

[Henry Chou]

I'm trying to design and implement a toy that will teach my daughter to clap (she is developmentally delayed and only responds to toys that reward with light and music). The device should be small and light weight for a 3 yr old with poor gross motor control, perhaps something worn on the hands or easily grasped in the palms, and should play a jingle of music w/ blinking lights when the two pieces are clapped together. The pieces should only turn on when they hit each other and should not turn on when they hit other objects or if shaken, and should not be continuously on if the two pieces are merely statically touching.

I have searched toy stores and online but have not found anything on the market like this, and can't wait for one to come to market so I've decided to try to make one. I have a background in computer science but mostly webdev (php mysql, ruby on rails etc), no hardware, so I decided to teach myself digital electronics and just bought the parallax basic stamp.

As I'm reading about what a microcontroller is, I see it is well suited to control a peizo speaker to play some sounds and turn on/off some leds, but at $50 a basic stamp, this is probably not what manufacturers actually use in these types of toys, right? Perhaps there is a more cost effective analog circuit solution to this? I also haven't quite figured out how to "detect a clap", perhaps an accelerometer?

Any suggestions or pointers? I'm just starting out. Thanks.