Does anyone have experience with solar panels and putting them together?

I have been wanting to do a “Do it yourself” type thing with solar panels when I ran across this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR4phYUiGQs&feature=fvw

I assumed you needed one whole piece of solar panel to make it work but apparently you can have broken pieces and solder them together.

Then I seen a calculator with a broken little solar panel popped out at work and thought I could probably find a bunch of broken and left over solar panels from devices that people throw away….right?(Well I guess there is not that many but hey…)

Do only certain solar panels connect? Are they all built off the same design or is there a difference?

Anyone have some insight or ideas? Things I should know ahead of time?

What will this likely cost me? One last question how hard is it to just build one from scratch, if that is even possible with DIY that is.