The app plans up to 200 houses at a time.
BUILD STEPS — IN ORDER
Five steps take you from the store to a finished birdhouse. Everything you enter is saved on this phone, so you can stop anywhere and pick up where you left off.
Target bird: pick it first. The entrance hole's size and its height are set for that bird.
Roof style: Simple (Flat) is the easier build. Advanced (Gable) looks better but takes angle cuts. Materials Prep compares the two side by side.
Houses to build: every count and every cut follows this number.
What to buy (one spare picket for every eight), how to pick good pickets at the store, trimming every picket to 5 1/4", and the widths your roof needs. It also keeps count of your spare predator guards.
One picket at a time, slide it along the screen and mark where each knot starts and ends. Board Is Clear is for a picket with none. Each board is saved the moment you save it, and coming back picks up at the next one; ◀ brings back a board you saved too soon. Finish All offers you a backup file, and the map is put away by itself once the Cutting Guide finishes the job.
Lays out every cut around your knots, for all your houses at once, and shows how much cedar that saved. Then it hands the cuts to the Cutting Guide.
Takes you through the cuts at the saw, one at a time, and reads each one aloud once you tap the screen — tap 🔊 to turn the voice off. Tap 🎤 and you can say “next” instead of tapping. ⏸ pauses and keeps your place.
A drawing and instructions for every step. Choose Shop (brad nailer) or Field (hammer and nails, for kids). It reopens on the step you left.
Enter what your pickets and screws cost and the markup you want on top of your cost. It shows what each house costs you, what to charge, and your profit on the whole batch. Selling kits or finished houses? Choose that in Settings.
Leader's Kit (under step 5): set up the build once, a shopping list for the whole troop, completion certificates, and three scripts to read from — standard, with humor, or your own words.
Teaching Mode (Settings): record your own voice reading each assembly step, and it plays for your group as you go.
Share with scouts (top of the assembly guide): a QR code that opens the guide on their phones.
The Bird Study merit badge worksheet is in the Leader's Kit.
What you enter lives in this phone's browser, and clearing the browser's data erases it. Backups keep it safe: your boards (the Knot Hopper's backup file), your recordings (Settings) and your Leader's Kit (in the Kit). A backup file is also how your work moves to a new phone.
Stay Awake (Settings) keeps the screen on at the bench. Update App (Settings) fixes an app that seems stuck on an old version.
Shop Tips & Notes, under the build steps: tips for your bird, the store, fasteners and safety, and a notes pad. Send to Alan emails your notes to Alan.
Kit mode: assembly labor not included in pricing.