Tag: after

Megaman Starforce: Pegasus/Leo/Dragon Side Quest Jobs Guide

writ­ten 7/18/26, updat­ed 7/22/26

Back to Video Game Guides

Read Mega­man Star­force: Zerk­er x Saurian/Ninja Side Quest Guide

Almost 20 years ago in 2007, I played this game on the Nin­ten­do DS. While I fin­ished it, I was­n’t very good at it and was nev­er able to ful­ly com­plete the game. At the time there were no easy guides to find and had to rely on Game FAQs to do it. Fast for­ward to 2026 for the Lega­cy Col­lec­tion on Nin­ten­do Switch: I’m bet­ter at this type of game now but there’s STILL a short­age of side quest guides that are to-the-point and not lit­tered with extreme amounts of ads, so I decid­ed to put one togeth­er myself. Here you go!

Main Game Side Quests

Echo Ridge

Town

Cindy WhiteLoca­tion: Town
Reward: Deluxe Ener­gy sub­card		Look in Chase Winde’s transer and report back
Joe HawntLoca­tion: Town
Reward: Search Eye sub­chip		Put on the visu­al­iz­er and talk to the Mr. Hertz lurk­ing behind the vend­ing machine
Iver Gat­teLoca­tion: Town
Reward: Heat Ball 2 chip		Go to Vista Point, pick up the mon­ey from the tele­scope, and return to the old man
Quiero MocardLoca­tion: Town
Reward: Attack +10 chip		Wants a Power­bomb 1 chip (Hint: Either a virus drop, or buy it from the chip deal­er on the wave road)
Chase WindeLoca­tion: Town
Reward: RC Mag (NROSIMAMSTU)		Pilot the heli­copter to knock down 3 soc­cer balls: North­east trees, south­east trees, Chip Shop’s anten­na
Juan MocardLoca­tion: Big Wave Chip Shop
Reward: GrndWave2 chip		Give him a Pow­er­song Chip (Hint: the virus that drops this appears dur­ing Harp Note’s main sto­ry in Echo Ridge)
Megaman.exe (cameo)Loca­tion: Dog­house comp
Reward: BN Buster weapon (Neato MM Bat­tle Net­work cameo)		Pulse into the dog house secu­ri­ty sys­tem at Bud Bison’s house, approach the EM ball, go to Stat­ue Comp at Vista Point, delete the Jam­mer, go back

Name References

  • Cindy White — prob­a­bly gener­ic, com­mon
  • Joe Hawnt — Hawnt = “Haunt” because he’s inter­est­ed in the para­nor­mal
  • Iver Gat­te — “I for­got” ref­er­enc­ing his old age
  • Quiero Mocard — Queiro means “I want,” and Mocard = “More card”
  • Chase Winde - chas­ing the wind because he likes RC heli­copters
  • Juan Mocard — Juan as in “One,” “more card”
  • Hope Ste­lar — Hope to ref­er­ence the hope that she, Bore­al, and Geo have to find Kelvin

School

Savory Dele­joLoca­tion: Entrance
Reward: 2,500 Zen­ny		Deliv­er ham sand­wich to old man next to lux­u­ry con­dos
Hol­ly Wach­erLoca­tion: Entrance
Reward: Invis­i­ble chip		Talk to Lei Zeek in the gym, then return to nag­ging girl
Lei ZeekLoca­tion: Gym
Reward: Plus Can­non chip		Equip Pitch­er Man Navi Card, then talk to the kid
Job GoodeLoca­tion: 1F Hall­way
Reward: Hand­book (SIXGAME‑O)		Go to the upper floor of the gym, look at the light at the far end, kill the virus­es inside
Blair LoudeLoca­tion: 1F Hall­way
Reward: Ice Mete­or 1 chip		Help write the song (Answer: White, Cheery, Kind, Ele­men­tary)
Triv QueryLoca­tion: Class 1‑A
Reward: Quiz Book (PREOBCOPB)		Com­plete the Quiz (Answer: Golash­es, 30, 1‑A, 50, Hiss)
Tere­sa TudorLoca­tion: Class 1‑A
Reward: Ice Mete­or 2 chip		Equip Ther­mo Man Navi Card, then talk to her (Hint: can only be done after Ophi­u­cia Main Quest)
Blue Truck NaviLoca­tion: Class 1‑A Comp
Reward: T. Arm­band Weapon		Wants Sync Hook 2 Chip
Ema NesiaLoca­tion: Class 1‑B
Reward: Eras­er (ALPTUNZLA)		Get Note from girl’s bath­room door, talk to her, input the code (Answer: 130)
Will NappeLoca­tion: Class 5‑A
Reward: Pow­er­song chip		Pulse in and talk to the Mr. Hertz that’s singing
Rad Con­treLoca­tion: 2F Hall­way
Reward: RC Scrp­bk (ILABCLERSAS)		Equip Pro­peller Man Navi Card, then talk to the kid
Bar­ry SquareLoca­tion: 2F Hall­way
Reward: Trip­song chip		Snoop in Mr. Shep­ar’s transer, then return
Mitch Shep­arLoca­tion: Stu­dio
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 10		Go to Times Square rooftop, talk to the man behind the Mowai thing, buy the action fig­ure, give to Shep­ar
Dee JayLoca­tion: Stu­dio
Reward: Plas­ma Gun 2 chip		Pulse into the stu­dio wave road then destroy the 3 EM wave balls (Hint: North­most arrow, fol­low the road, then 2 arrows south)
Nadia KleenLoca­tion: Class 5‑B
Reward: Green Burst chip		Equip Shov­el Man Navi Card, then talk to her (Hint: Can only do after Gem­i­ni Main Quest)

Name References

  • Savory Dele­jo — Savory as in deli­cious, but I don’t know what dele­jo is
  • Hol­ly Wach­er - “Hall Watch­er”
  • Lei Zeek — “Lazy”
  • Job Goode — Prob­a­bly “Good job” as he’s a goody-two-shoes
  • Blair Loude — “Blare Loud”
  • Triv Query — “triv­ia” and “Query”
  • Tere­sa Tudor — Tudor as in “tutor”
  • Ema Nesia — “amne­sia”
  • Will Nappe — “Will,” “Nap”
  • Rad Con­tre — I have no idea
  • Bar­ry Square — “very square” as in very straight up and uptight
  • Mitch Shep­ar — Mitch is close to “Mis­ter,” and Shep­ar as in shep­herd
  • Dee Jay — “DJ”
  • Nadia Kleen — Nadia as in “nada,” does­n’t want to clean

AMAKEN

Mille BooneyLoca­tion: Entrance
Reward: Whis­tle chip		Answer her ques­tions (Answer: Force, Broth­erband, Secret)
Chat­ty DitzLoca­tion: Entrance
Reward: 1,000 Zen­ny		Pulse in, then talk to the Mr. Hertz near the warp
Sumar Guy Loca­tion: Entrance
Reward: Unlock­er sub­chip		Go to Anten­na Comp on the north part of the wave road, then delete the virus­es
Pol­ly ReadeLoca­tion: Muse­um
Reward: Sci Notes (LAREBARAON)		Help the girl with her home­work (Answer: Black hole, 3, Leo)
Tug­gy McGravLoca­tion: Muse­um
Reward: Heat Ball 3 chip		Pulse into the Black Hole Comp, go to the north­east cor­ner and defeat the virus­es
Grace FulleLoca­tion: Foy­er
Reward: Invi­ta­tion (AURIEFRUTS)		Pulse into the Tick­et Machine Comp, give Mr. Hertz a Small Ener­gy Sub­chip
Leroy MannLoca­tion: Foy­er
Reward: Cloak­er sub­chip		Peek at the recep­tion­ist’s Transer, then return to him
Swill WatersLoca­tion: Foy­er’s break area
Reward: Deluxe Ener­gy sub­chip		Go back to Echo Ridge, buy a Sour Soda, bring it back to the man
Tom DubiusLoca­tion: Muse­um
Reward: Blue­prints (NGYNGIWCUS)		Equip Pro­peller Man Navi Card, talk to him
Edgar KnightLoca­tion: Muse­um
Reward: Unlock­er sub­chip		Give him a Recov­er 30 chip
Mira LookesLoca­tion: Space Sim
Reward: Guard Null Stage chip		Talk to the Mr. Hertz star­ing at her from the wave road
Chrys GoldsLoca­tion: Entrance
Reward: 7,000 Zen­ny		Go to Times Square, talk to Hei­di Rune, go back to the creepy man­ag­er (Hint: He appears after Harp Note main quest)
Lucian (cameo)Loca­tion: Entrance Tow­er Comp
Reward: Noth­ing, just a cool Boktai/Lunar Knights cameo		Go to Nacys Roof wave road to find Aaron, then the anten­na Scrap Comp 3 in scrap­yard 2 (Hint: Avail­able after Gem­i­ni main quest)

Name References

  • Mille Booney — Booney as in “from the boonies,” mean­ing she’s from the coun­try and does­n’t know any­thing about city life and tech­nol­o­gy
  • Chat­ty Ditz — exact­ly what it says
  • Sumar Guy — “Some” guy
  • Pol­ly Reade — Read for books
  • Tug­gy McGrav — Tug as in “pull,” McGrav for “grav­i­ty”
  • Grace Fulle — “grace­ful”
  • Leroy Mann — Mann for “man”
  • Swill Waters — swill and water for drinks
  • Tom Dubius — Dubius = “dubi­ous” for how hes­i­tant he is
  • Edgar Knight — Knight as in “knight in shin­ing armor”
  • Mira Lookes — Mira = “won­der­ful” and “looks” because she’s so beau­ti­ful
  • Chrys Golds — “Golds” for mon­ey, maybe “cries gold” for how rich he is

Time Square

Rooftop

Pro­fes­sor SnakeLoca­tion: Event Area
Reward: Snake Orn (IPHAUEOEUNQC)		He’s miss­ing 3 snakes, one in each area: Right of Nacys build­ing, South­east cor­ner of dept store, Left of roof ele­va­tor
Vaughn PlatzLoca­tion: Rooftop
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 10		Wants 5 Moai Fall 1 chips
(Hint: can farm them in the big spin­ning stat­ue at the entrance of the area)
Slu­gar ParkLoca­tion: Rooftop
Reward: Fire Bazooka 2 chip		Equip Pitch­er Man Navi Card, look at the base­ball arcade game, bring the base­ball card back to the kid
Homer ParkLoca­tion: Rooftop
Reward: Cloak­er sub­chip		Look inside his grand­son’s Transer and report back
Annie OldeLoca­tion: Dept Store
Reward: 2,000 Zen­ny		Go to the top cor­ner of the cus­tomer ser­vice desk and bring her a guide
Kurt Tay­lorLoca­tion: Dept Store
Reward: Dept Fly­er (ISNBDUBO)		Talk to the Mr. Hertz on the wave road above the mir­ror
Veil PlatzLoca­tion: Dept Store
Reward: Memb Card (KNIGSPIAREM)		Get Recipe from your mom at home, deliv­er it to Luna’s mom
Rheema DellerLoca­tion: Dept Store
Reward: Recov­ery 120 chip		Talk to her with Key Man Navi Card equipped
Hei­di RuneLoca­tion: Time Square
Reward: Search Eye sub­chip		Walk to the Bowl­ing Alley shop, pick up the Ring from the ground, give it to the lady
Collin WaytinLoca­tion: Time Square
Reward: 3,500 Zen­ny		Go to the wave road above the bus stop, and defeat the 3 Jam­mers
Indy DarkeLoca­tion: Time Square
Reward: Love Book (ROHNATPE)		Sneak a peek into Hei­di Rune’s Transer and report back to the dude
Don­na Query (Quiz Queen)Loca­tion: Time Square
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 10		Answer her 10 ques­tions cor­rect­ly (Answers: 100, Muse­um, 3, Cow, Ken Suther, 6, 3, 4, 9, Jet Attack 1)

Name References

  • Pro­fes­sor Snake — noth­ing spe­cial
  • Vaughn Platz — noth­ing spe­cial
  • Slu­gar Park — “Slug­ger” and “Park” as in ball­park
  • Homer Park — “Home­run” and “Park” as in ball­park
  • Annie Olde — “old” because she is
  • Kurt Tay­lor — Tay­lor = “Tai­lor” because of clothes store
  • Veil Platz — Noth­ing spe­cial aside from both hus­band and wife hav­ing “V” names
  • Rheema Deller — I don’t know
  • Hei­di Rune — “Hidey” because she has a secret
  • Col­in Waytin — “Call­ing,” and “Wait­ing”
  • Indy Dark — “In the dark” because his girl­friend has a secret from him
  • Don­na Query — “query”

Dream Island

Meala DeVourLoca­tion: Entrance
Reward: 5,000 Zen­ny		Go to AMAK­EN’s sou­venir shop’s reg­is­ter and buy a Shoot­ing Star Cake for 500Z, then bring it back
Selah AganeLoca­tion: Entrance
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 10		Pulse into the refrig­er­a­tor and give Mr. Hertz a Recov­ery 80
Roy Query (Quiz King)Loca­tion: Entrance
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 20		Take his quiz (Answer: Secu­ri­ty Sys­tem, Moon, Big Bang Cof­fee, Fire Bazooka 2, 2, 100, 150, King, Rover, Chem Lab, Uwaaa!, 12, Nacys, Giraffe, Old Lady)
Mead GreeneLoca­tion: Park
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 10		Equip Shov­el Man Navi Card, talk to old man
John For­manLoca­tion: Dump
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 10		Equip Ther­mo Man Navi Card, look at sorter bot

Name References

  • Mead Greene — “Need green” as in green­ery
  • Meala DeVour — “Meal devour” because she likes to eat food
  • Selah Agane — “See ya again”
  • John For­man — “Fore­man”

Post-Game Side Quests

Couronne XIVLoca­tion: Dream island Scrap­yard 1
Reward: Crown Thun­der chip		Talk to him, then bat­tle him on City Dump wave road in front of the crane
Bob Cop­perLoca­tion: Time Square
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 20		Defeat Jam­mers in Mowai Comp, Cake Shop Comp, and Enor­ma­tron Comp
Pat SprigsLoca­tion: Amak­en Mr. Bore­al’s Office
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 10		Go to the city dump and talk to the work­er near the truck, go to Nacys and look at the sorter bot on the roof, return to Pat
Hope Ste­larLoca­tion: Echo Ridge Home
Reward: Prot Charm (OSLEGRATE)		Look at refrig­er­a­tor, pulse into Fridge Comp, delete virus­es
Ken SutherLoca­tion: Echo Ridge Big Wave Card Shop
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 10		Give him Wide Wave 3 chip
Aaron Bore­al Loca­tion: Dream Island Island Under­ground
Reward: HP Mem­o­ry 20		Go to his office in AMAKEN, look at the lock­ers, go back to him

Deep Space

Loca­tion: Echo Ridge’s Vista Point

Reward: Kelvin Transer, K. Knuck­le (mega weapon), Pegasus/Leo/Dragon Bat­tle Chip, 100% Game Com­ple­tion

Pulse into Vista Point’s wave por­tal, then go north and enter the new por­tal there which takes you into the Deep Space Chal­lenge. You’re going to need a few things to beat it:

  • You will need have beat­en the SP forms of all the boss­es, includ­ing the option­al boss­es

Boss Locations:

  • Tau­rus Fire: Echo Ridge
  • Harp Note: Vista Point
  • Cygnus Wing: Bore­al’s Office
  • Libra Scales: Class 5‑A
  • Queen Ophi­u­ca: Time Square
  • Gem­i­ni Spark: Dream Island Park
  • Can­cer Bub­ble: AMAKEN Foy­er
  • Wolf Woods: Event Area
  • Couronne XIV: City Dump
  • 5 Unlock­ers (Can buy in sign comp in Echo Ridge)
  • 100 stan­dard chips to get into Deep Space 2
  • All 150 stan­dard chips (some of them are going to be able to be bought in Deep Space 2, so save up your Zen­ny, or dropped from virus­es there, so use the C. Find­er weapon for Mega OR you can cheat like me by using the ciphers in this LINK. Be warned that some of the mes­sage ones were made for the DS and for the Switch you just type them out. Minor spelling dif­fer­ences like “Broth­er-Bands” was just “Broth­er Bands”)
  • To get to the Kelvin Transer: either delete all your Broth­er Bands, or have the Lone­ly Heart found from a hid­den pas­sage on the Liv­ing Mod­ule Comp from the space sta­tion (Liv­ing Mod­ule hid­den wave road path south­east-most jut out point). You talk to the Mr. Hertz there and answer “No”
  • At the end of Deep Space 3, face your satel­lite admin as a boss to gain their Megachip. They’ll leave you with cryp­tic words: “Use it to kin­dle the 6 stars and con­quer the tru­ly lone­ly evil giant.”

The Lonely/Evil One

  • So what you need to do now is to find and fight your satel­lite admin just like the oth­er boss­es, both EX and SP forms (pulse out after EX to bring out the SP form), and get BOTH CHIPS. EX is easy, SP… not so much. Good luck. I did­n’t get even close. So, I cheat­ed… with CIPHER email codes. Pega­sus Mag­ic SP: “Go On Air to trade info with friends.” Leo King­dom SP: “Star Force, the ulti­mate pow­er!” Drag­on Sky SP: “Leg­endary Mas­ter Shin”
  • The “six stars” are all of the achieve­ments on the title screen (Beat the game, All stan­dard chips [150], all SP forms beat­en, all Mega Chips [30], all Giga chips [5], and defeat of your satel­lite admin), so after fin­ish­ing every­thing, save, and return to the title screen, then con­tin­ue.
  • Go to Vista Point and talk to Zack. He’ll tell you there’s a strange noise com­ing from the piano. Go to the school’s gym and pulse into the piano. There’s a mas­sive group of Jam­mers there. Talk to them for a 10-round virus bust­ing chal­lenge! When you’re done, go back and talk to Zack, and he’ll ask to form a Broth­er Band with you!
  • Leave Vista Point and you get an email from Leg­endary Shin that says: KMALEETZCP. Go ahead and send a CIPHER email with that code for M. Breath Mega weapon
  • The only thing left is to chal­lenge Androm­e­da again because… This time it’s Androm­e­da INFINITY!! 4000HP and very fast attacks.
  • When you defeat it, you’ve ful­ly com­plet­ed the game!

Con­grat­u­la­tions!!

100% COMPLETION!

Read Mega­man Star­force: Zerk­er x Saurian/Ninja Side Quest Guide

Back to Video Game Guides

DIY: Wood Porch Package Shelter with Solar Powered Camera

writ­ten 6/8/26; updat­ed 6/15/26

Overview

What

Shel­ter for pack­age deliv­ery

Why

Cov­ered area from the ele­ments for pack­ages

Time and Effort

Time: 2–3 Days

Effort: Mod­er­ate

Supplies, Equipment, and Cost

Bought Mate­r­i­al

Exte­ri­or Wood Screw Ass­rt Kit

Min­wax Wood Filler 16oz

XL Rec­tan­gu­lar Feet Rub­ber Bumpers

(0.59″ H x 3.00 L x 1.51″ W)

#10, 1½” Truss Head Wood Screws (80ct)

Tapo C400 Solar Out­door Cam­era Kit

Goril­la Water­proof Patch Seal Spray (x2)

Varathane One Step Stain+Spar Exte­ri­or

Sand­ed Ply­wood 23⁄32″ x 2′ x 4′ sheet

Woost­er Short­cut 2″ Paint­brush

Cost

$15.99

$11.98

$16.99

-

$9.99

$49.99

$29.92

$29.98

$28.20

$7.47

Total

$200.51

Owned Sup­plies

1x4 Wood

2x4 Wood

1x2 Wood

Masks

Eye Pro­tec­tion

Gloves

Hear­ing Pro­tec­tion

Impact Dri­ver

Drill Dri­ver

Cir­cu­lar Saw

Driver/Drill Bits

Wood Screws

Cord­ed Sander

Sand­pa­per

Squares

Pen­cil

Mea­sur­ing Tape

Spac­ers

Clamps

Work­ta­bles

Wet/Dry Vac

Option­al: Spring Loaded Cen­ter Punch, Rub­ber Shims

Schematics, Measurements, Wood Needed

These are the mea­sure­ments I end­ed up with. Feel free to make it to any desired dimen­sions for your space

Sor­ry, I’m ter­ri­ble at draw­ing per­spec­tive

Wood Used

Type/Size

2x4

1x4

1x2

-

Ply­wood 2′ x 4′ x

23⁄32″ Sheet

-

-

Misc

Length

22¼”

18″ & 14″

14″ & 22¼”

20½” & 1½”

18⅜” x 17″

6″ x 17″

4½” x 10½”

4½” x 7⅝”

4½” x ¼”

Amount

x4

x4(18″); x2(14″)

x2(14″); x2(22¼”)

x1(20½”); x3(1½”)

x1

x2

x1

x1

x1

Total Length

89″ (7.42′)

100″ (8.33′)

-

97½” (8.125′)

-

-

-

33.375″ (2.78′)

Scrap

Sum­ma­ry

Wood Prod­uct

2′ x 4 ‘x 8’

1′ x 4′ x 8

1′ x 2′ x 8

2′ x 4′ x 23⁄32″ Ply­wood Sheet

Amount Need­ed

1

1 + 0.33″ *

1 + 0.125″ *

1

*NOTE: So, could buy more or use just a lit­tle less in the the under­body and any place nobody will notice

Process

Dis­claimer: I am NOT a pro­fes­sion­al, just an ama­teur DIY­er. This is chron­i­cling how I went about com­plet­ing this dreamed-up idea

Planning, Measuring, Gathering Materials

  • Con­sid­er mea­sure­ments, dimen­sions, over­all shape, and any sup­port pieces need­ed for the desired loca­tion
  • Gath­er nec­es­sary mate­ri­als and equip­ment
  • Decide if a secu­ri­ty cam­era is desired: where/how to mount it, pow­er source, abil­i­ty to rotate remote­ly, stor­age options, sub­scrip­tion options, cord length, etc.
  • Decide upon fin­ish: stain/paint, seal­er, water­proof­ing, etc

Dry Assemble

  • Since it was going to sit out­side in the ele­ments, I want­ed to ele­vate it off the ground as well as pro­vide air­flow and drain­ing since it’s wood after all. For the spac­ers, I used some ran­dom pieces of dou­ble reflec­tive insu­la­tion that hap­pened to be the right size
  • Test­ing out the sup­ports and try­ing to decide if I want­ed them on the ground of rest­ing on the bot­tom cross-pieces

Plywood Cutting

SAFETY FIRST! It is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed to use eye pro­tec­tion, gloves, shoes, and hear­ing pro­tec­tion when using pow­er tools. You can even wear an apron to pre­vent a mess on your clothes. Also, cut­ting wood makes a huge mess, so plan accord­ing­ly.

Roof Panels

  • Ooo, this part made me real­ly ner­vous. The tricky part was try­ing to mea­sure how much is need­ed to have a straight mansard style roof (at least I think that’s what it’s called) that I was plan­ning for the project. After a lot of uncer­tain­ty, I just went for it.
  • I decid­ed to cut the side pieces first before the main large mid­dle piece. You can see in the right­most image that I was try­ing to cal­cu­late how much I’d need for the mid­dle one.

This unfor­tu­nate Spot­ted Lantern­fly nymph was in the way of my cut mid­dle roof pan­el and got squished.

Miter (Angled) Cuts with a Circular Saw

  • I don’t have a miter saw any­more. When I moved, I got rid of my nice com­pound miter saw thanks to lack of space and use. With no desire to buy a new one ($200–500!!), I found out that you can actu­al­ly use a cir­cu­lar saw to make angled cuts!!
  • Just find the release, set the angle, and voila!

Check that angled cut!! This was 45 degrees

  • With boost­ed con­fi­dence, I went ahead and made all the cuts that I had mea­sured out before, angled includ­ed, with the help of a speed square
  • Mis­take #1: Spa­tial stuff is not my forte. As it turns out, two 45-degree sur­faces togeth­er make a square… Which is not what I was going for. What I want­ed was a 45-degree sur­face mat­ed with a 90-degree sur­face. Whoops.
45-degrees mat­ed with 45-degrees
45-degrees mat­ed with 90-degrees

This image shows how the side pan­els have 90-degree sides and the mid­dle pan­el has 45-degree cuts.

  • Let’s set that aside for a lit­tle bit

Assembling the Base

  • Lay out and ori­ent the base as planned, ensur­ing the spaces are cor­rect
  • Flip it upside down, care­ful­ly, and fix the spac­ers again, mak­ing sure every­thing is ori­ent­ed cor­rect­ly (use a pen­cil to mark the wood)
  • Dry-fit the rub­ber feet to desired ori­en­ta­tion. I chose the long way

Note: Giv­en the size of my struc­ture, if I were to do it again, I’d spring for anoth­er 2–4 rub­ber feet. As I only have 4, if you push back­wards on the struc­ture, it tilts until it hits wood instead of being as sta­ble as I’d like it to be

  • Secure every­thing with clamps so they don’t move around
  • Grab screws (I used #8 ‑1¼” wood screws for the wood which comes with a bit)
  • Get the dri­ver with drill bit and impact dri­ver
  • Mark holes, mak­ing sure to leave room for the rub­ber feet
  • Secure the base togeth­er by first drilling pilot holes, then dri­ving in the screw
  • Secure rub­ber feet using appro­pri­ate­ly sized screws (mine were #10, 1½” Truss head Wood Screws)
  • Option­al­ly, use a spring-loaded cen­ter punch to help mark the holes

Secure Supports

Time to add the roof sup­ports. This not only holds the roof, but also adds sta­bil­i­ty to the base

  • Clamp to work­space
  • Decide where screws will go, and mark them
  • Drill pilot holes, then dri­ve in the screws with the impact. Don’t sink them into the wood until every­thing is in place. Can’t stress the pilot hole enough here.

Note: you may need to get cre­ative with the clamp if you don’t have one long enough. I end­ed up drilling one hole, then insert­ing one screw to bet­ter hold the wood in place to dri­ve in anoth­er before doing the rest

Assembling the Roof

  • Mis­take #2: Mis­cal­cu­la­tion of roof pan­el sizes

Yeeaaaaah… It’s too short (at this point, I’d already secured the pan­els togeth­er. I did­n’t write that out yet, because the sizes are wrong)

  • Now that I’ve com­plet­ed the project, I can now tell you that for the 26⅜” span of the com­plet­ed roof, I need­ed 6″ side pan­els x2, and an 18⅜” pan­el for the mid­dle. That’s a total of 30⅜” length of ply­wood (so, 26⅜ : 30⅜ ratio, which is an increase of 4″ com­pared to the span)

My Fix

  • Instead of hav­ing to cut a dif­fer­ent piece alto­geth­er, I decid­ed to do a bit of a Franken­stein job. The cos­met­ics would­n’t mat­ter for the roof, as I already planned to cov­er the entire thing with a rub­ber water­proof­ing
  • So, I cut an addi­tion to the mid­dle roof­ing piece, angled to attach togeth­er into a flat plane
  • After mulling over how to secure any of the roof to the struc­ture, I decid­ed to use a tech­nique that you nev­er see used in con­struc­tion of a roof for a good rea­son. Basi­cal­ly, I used pock­et holes to secure the miter-cut pan­els togeth­er and used wood glue to improve adhe­sion. With my lack of wood work­ing expe­ri­ence and skill, my attempt at this was pret­ty bad, but hey, it worked. See for your­self:

Assembling the Rest of the Roof

  • After some dry-fit­ting, more cuts were made, uti­liz­ing scrap wood to help sta­bi­lize the clamped struc­ture for trim­ming

It looks sooo baaaad. And it was hard to line the holes up. Again, pilot holes are 100% a must!!

  • After I real­ized that I’d made an error in the mea­sure­ments, I had to back out some of the screws, and then screwed in only 1 of the side roof sec­tions to the struc­ture to facil­i­tate the addi­tion of the rest of the roof and mea­sure­ments
  • Some dry-fit­ting, more cuts, uti­lized scrap wood to help sta­bi­lize the clamped struc­ture for trim­ming
  • To secure the big, heavy piece to the rest of the struc­ture, I need­ed to get cre­ative with how I’d sta­bi­lize it all to drill into the sup­ports
I used a chair, a buck­et, and many pieces of scrap wood
  • I used the Glue-and-Screw method along with longer screws, know­ing full well that all the weight would be press­ing into these 4 sup­ports
Glue
Screw
Real­ly long screw. It’s super hard to dri­ve in straight, so I just used 1 per sup­port and tried my best

Tip: I used a method where I would drill pilot holes, then dri­ve a screw part­ly in just so the tip sticks out, which can there­fore be “caught by” a pilot hole, then impact­ed in the rest of the way. This is help­ful if you have dif­fi­cul­ty see­ing how the holes line up togeth­er. You can see this in the mid­dle image above

  • Roof com­plete! It ain’t pret­ty, but it works!
Very bad look­ing
But, hey!
Super messed up on this one and did­n’t want to redo it

More Supports

To help fur­ther sta­bi­lize the struc­ture, I added side and roof sup­ports

Side Supports

  • Total of 4, using 1″ x 2″ wood, but only 3 for now

Roof Support

  • Dry fit, cut, glue, and screw (from bot­tom-up and top-down)

Camera Support

Camera Setup and Design

  • For the cam­era, I chose a sta­t­ic, solar-pow­ered one for this. Look­ing back, I kind of wish I’d cho­sen one that could be rotat­ed remote­ly, but this was cheap­er.
  • Find the mount­ing plate for the cam­era, and decide how it should be mount­ed on the struc­ture, tak­ing the cord attach­ment, length, and pow­er source into con­sid­er­a­tion
  • Set up the cam­era first, charg­ing it, con­fig­ur­ing it, and iron out any stor­age stuff
  • Dry fit every­thing, and deter­mine what is need­ed to secure it to the struc­ture
  • At this point, I lugged the unit out­side to ful­ly test the cam­era place­ment and make the deter­mi­na­tion for fur­ther mod­i­fi­ca­tions

Assembling the Camera Supports

  • Mis­take #3: Using small 2x4 blocks, and too large of screws
  • I want­ed the cam­era to set a lit­tle fur­ther back in a small, cov­ered alcove, if you will, so the width of a 2x4 was per­fect
  • Mea­sured, cut, drilled pilot holes, marked place­ment, then drove in screws…
  • …Only to find that the wood screws I bought were too big, the 2x4 too small and frag­ile:

So much for that

  • H’OKAY, THEN… just ply­wood it is
  • Mea­sure, cut, drill, screw part­way, place, screw ful­ly
  • Cut a tee­ny tiny bit of scrap to fill the lit­tle space between the roof and what juts out the back, then drill, and screw (glue, too, if desired)

Install Camera Mount

Note: In ret­ro­spect, I should have wait­ed until after the staining/sealing to do this because I end­ed up get­ting stain and seal­er all over the mount

  • Using either any pro­vid­ed tem­plates, or just a pen­cil, mark the holes
  • Choose appro­pri­ate screws and screw­driv­er
  • Dou­ble-check pic­ture on cam­era and hand access
  • Drill pilot holes, then screw in the mount

I men­tion “hand access” because you want to be able to remove, adjust, main­tain the cam­era, so if you can’t eas­i­ly loosen/tighten the mount attach­ment, then life just got more dif­fi­cult

Preliminary Clean-Up

  • Good time to tidy up equip­ment, mate­ri­als, and mess
  • Used the shop vac to clean off every­thing, includ­ing the unit
  • From here on out the only equip­ment need­ed will be sand­ing mate­ri­als, wood filler, sealant, and paint/stain stuff

Wood Filler

  • Using either a tack cloth or a damp tow­el, wipe any excess dust/wood par­ti­cles from the unit
  • Using a mix­ture of your hand and a put­ty knife, fill in holes and gaps with the wood filler. I start­ed with the put­ty knife but just end­ed up using my fin­gers. Gloves could be help­ful

Note: Wood filler can come in dif­fer­ent col­ors. If you’re choos­ing to use just a clearcoat seal­er, take this into con­sid­er­a­tion

  • Vac­u­um again. Wood filler is messier than I thought it would be

Sanding

My least favorite part of wood­work­ing

  • Wait until the wood filler is dry (read the instruc­tions, usu­al­ly 2 hours)
  • Sand the unit using a mix­ture of pow­ered ran­dom orbital sander and sand­pa­per for the hard­er to reach places
  • This will not only sand the rough areas smooth, but it will remove any pen­cil marks

Safe­ty first! Use eye and res­pi­ra­to­ry pro­tec­tion

Stain/Paint and Sealers

Safe­ty!! Seal­ers and stain are inhala­tion and spon­ta­neous fire haz­ards. Wear appro­pri­ate pro­tec­tion (eye, skin, res­pi­ra­to­ry), work in well-ven­ti­lat­ed areas (e.g. out­side), and have good dis­pos­al set­up ready (I always have a tray of water to sub­merge any stain-soaked equip­ment in)

Roof — Waterproof Sealer

  • I decid­ed to use Goril­la Brand Water­proof Patch + Seal because I’ve used it before on gal­va­nized met­al for an out­door dec­o­ra­tive item. It worked real­ly well and still with­stands sun and weath­er

Note: This prod­uct makes a mas­sive mess and smells ter­ri­ble. I rec­om­mend an apron, gloves, card­board bar­ri­ers, painter’s tape, pro­tec­tive work­space cov­er­ings, and work­ing out­side

  • With every­thing cov­ered well, and using a piece of card­board, spray away!
piece of card­board to catch over­spray

Before and After:

This is what hap­pens when you don’t use gloves. Since it’s water­proof, it was a night­mare to clean off. Wear gloves!!

  • I used an entire can on the first round, so I had to buy anoth­er one for the sec­ond round the next day. That means that it was able to cure overnight.
Wear­ing gloves this time

Stain + Spar Urethane

  • As the 2nd coat of roof seal­er was dry­ing, I decid­ed to just go ahead with the stain before the day heat­ed up (I was under­neath the deck, so there was shade)
  • I had the water tray set up to put every­thing the stain touched to pre­vent any spon­ta­neous fires (YES, they can cause fires, espe­cial­ly if you ball them up!!)
  • Gloves were real­ly nice not just for clean-up rea­sons, but to get stain where the paint­brush would­n’t reach well. You can also use a rag to apply the stain.
  • I did 2 coats (2‑hour dry in between with light sand­ing), and made sure to get 1 coat on the bot­tom of the unit, too
  • Remem­ber: Stain gets dark­er when ful­ly cured. I orig­i­nal­ly thought that the col­or was a bit light, then when I came to look the next day, it was as adver­tised on the can
Did­n’t end up using near­ly as much as I thought I would
Douse any­thing that has stain on it!!

Attach Camera

  • All that’s left to do now it to install the cam­era!
Just screws right in!

ALL DONE!!!

Notice the solar pan­el on the ground… Maybe I should secure it to a dif­fer­ent piece of wood?

Notes

  • You can put flow­ers on top. This was my orig­i­nal plan, but I need­ed to find a shal­low bowl pot to look bet­ter on top. This has not been done yet because the one I found is over $20 and I already spent enough on this darn thing
  • I used rub­ber shims to square up the feet
  • So far deliv­ery peo­ple have used it maybe 20% of the time which I find obnox­ious. Like­ly, it’s because they’d rather chuck my stuff up the stairs than actu­al­ly go up. The first per­son to use it was FedEx who put my stuff on top. *sigh* I think I might need to put up a sign? Did­n’t want to make it look more tacky

1 week later — Cracking

  • Went out and saw that after a week of super high heat and spon­ta­neous pow­er­ful storms, the roof seal­er was crack­ing and peel­ing!! It’s inter­est­ing to note that the shady side looks com­plete­ly fine, while the side that gets all the sun is crack­ing. Was it applied to heav­i­ly? Did it cure prop­er­ly? Def­i­nite­ly sun dam­age, though, because any video door­bell there will have its lens destroyed by sun with­in 1.5 years. I was super dis­ap­point­ed that it only made it 1 week.
  • In response, I quick­ly bought anoth­er Water­proof Patch & Seal, except this time it was a tape. This is the stuff that’s sup­posed to work under­wa­ter to seal off a leak.
  • Peel­ing off the pro­tec­tive plas­tic is a demon, but this will def­i­nite­ly not crack. I hope.
More peeled off as I was adding the new tape…
  • It does look a lit­tle janky, but what­ev­er. If I cared enough, I’d get anoth­er rub­ber­ized seal­er and cov­er this with that. Per­haps I’d try the paint-on kind this time instead of the spray which is so messy and glob­by. Will update if I end up doing that. I’m going to see how well this prod­uct works, first.