What did you do to your trains today?

I'm currently in college studying computer engineering, but I've been tinkering with electronics since I was a kid. I got into computers in high school after getting interested in old video games (my parent's basement is full of Thomas toys and vintage computers). Yes, I plan on having it say some of Toad's lines too! It was also suggested that it could play some of Oliver's lines, but I'm not sure if I'll do that.

The sound board I'm using right now is primarily meant to be used with individual buttons for each sound trigger, which is not how Talk n Actions work as they read a certain number of presses and then after enough time with no presses, play a sound based on how many presses they sensed. The microcontroller basically does this conversion, although it sends which sound to play to the soundboard over a serial connection. I could have wired the microcontroller up to fake the button presses instead, but the serial connection is simpler. I would have rather found an all in one sound board and microcontroller, or a microcontroller that can produce sound better on its own, and I'm sure with a little more searching I could find one, but for now it exists as three boards, a microcontroller, the sound board, and an amplifier for driving the speaker from the soundboard, which has a line level output. It does all fit into the 3D printed truck, but not with the original speaker bracket I hoped to use.