Software, build
The software was written fairly quickly in AVR-GCC, although the button-reading routines took some tuning to get right. It's basically an implementation of Binary Code Modulation which stops every now and then to run on each led consecutively and read its reflection to the photo transistor. The main program contains the code to play out the recorded led sequences from EEPROM and the routines to record new sequences to it. Ofcourse you can get all of this GPLv3-licensed goodness in a nice source archive.
The physical incarnation of the NoveMini is built on two pieces
of experimentation PCB containing all the parts. The two PCBs are joined
by a single header, with a second, smaller header just to keep the
two PCBs apart mechanically. A mini-USB-connector is used for the power supply.
As I said, I decided to make the housing from bent acrylic glass. In particular,
I decided to make 2 U-shaped pieces which could then be superglued together.
I have no professional devices to do the bending, but my improvised device
consisting of a heat gun and a piece of PCB with a slit sawed in it, worked like
a charm:
And after a lot of sawing, fitting, sanding, drilling etc, this is how the
end product ended up. Pretty nice for something home-built without too much
tools and experience, won't you say?
Turned on, this is how it looks:
