Having long been interested in programming, I set about designing the hardware and software for a one-axis solar tracker, powered by a PICAXE 08M2 chip. In this case, the aim of the product is to be able to track the movement of a light source, adjusting the rotation of the white panel to be facing the light.
The project was based on the PIC 08M2 demo circuit board (green circuit board) which I soldered all the components (chip, resistors etc.) to in an electronics module while at Loughborough University.
In order to use the demo board as a solar tracker, 2 Light-Dependant Resistors (LDRs) and a servo would be required. To do this, they would need to be connected to the chips I/O ports. The first step was to solder in the external connector pins, and then connect the board to a breadboard (also known as a solder-less circuit board).
The LDRs and servo were connected to particular channels on the breadboard which were then connected to the connecting pins on the demo/control board. A basic acrylic frame was made, to which the servo and an axle were mounted. The 'solar panel' was made with a small piece of acrylic, with one LDR mounted at each end.
I then wrote the entire code for the tracker, using the PICAXE Programming Editor. Due to some previous experience with programming in Visual Basic and Python, I was quick to become proficient with the language, creating an application that is at the limit of what the 08M2 can handle. (1 ADC I/O pin for the servo, 2 external inputs from the LDRs).