I have an interest in this too but like so many things I have not got round to building it yet. I was going to try the Rasberry PI for a low powered board or the beaglebone black. https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-list-of-AltCoins-worth-mining-with-a-Raspberry-Pi-2
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=231333.0
I left the job with an Xilinx FPGA when I was laid off.... So this should be some fun this winter. http://hackaday.com/2013/02/22/a-bitcoin-mining-example-for-the-beaglebone-with-an-fpga-shield/
Let us know how you get on.