Alright, so I did some digging and I think I found a list of the hardware I should get... I'm not sure what will work yet, but if it's possible to build it from these (or if you have better suggestions, I'm of course open to them), then happy day.
I decided to also add a pushbutton and tilt sensor. So here's the list (and links of what I found...)
I'm a bit stuck on which microcontoller to pick, but here's what I've found (I don't know what'll work):
**broken link removed**
**broken link removed**
Microstick for dsPIC33F and PIC24H
I have honestly no idea what one to choose.
LEDs:
Red LED
Not much here, other than better places/options to get this.
Sensors/Switches:
**broken link removed**
Mini Pushbutton Switch
I think I'm set with these two -- they look like they do exactly what I need.
In order to detect movement, I was looking into these options:
Sonar Range Finder
Or this Passive IR Detector
The sonar one seems like the better choice for what I want to do...
Audio:
If I choose to go with Arduino, I can get this
Wave Shield, and that seems to be the only thing I can find so far.
Ideally, I'd like to be able to play around 35 different audio files (I can format as anything), ends up being 7mb or so.
As for speakers, I found these:
16mm Speaker
30 mm Speaker
Not sure which seems better, or if there's simply a better option here. Would it be possible to just send audio output from the microcontroller above without the Wave Shield? I assume I'd have to have some sort of external storage for the sound files, though...
Finally, the last thing I need to get together is the motor. I'm not exactly sure of the final weight, but I think the easiest way to do it is to have the top half of the turret (basically, everything but the legs) sit on a disk with ball bearing in it, and then just rotate about that (it only needs a range of about 45 degrees).
This is the motor I was looking at (perhaps too small?)
Here's a picture of what I'm trying to build.
Thanks for all the help everyone!