SYN Shop offers equipment, knowledge for those who wish to create

For every garage-bound, weekend tinkerer who has ever wanted to wield a laser cutter, harness the raw power of welding equipment or conjure objects out of thin air using a 3-D printer, now is your time.

The Las Vegas "hackerspace" SYN Shop, a nonprofit organization with a goal of sparking technological creativity and a motto of "Let's make stuff awesome," is scheduled to move in the coming months into its new downtown home at 117 N. Fourth St., across from Neonopolis, courtesy of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and his $350 million Downtown Project.

The shop provides the space, equipment and knowledge to help anyone with a desire to learn and tinker.

"We're like any other charity that helps people, but we have cool power tools," SYN Shop board member James Cole said.

The shop puts no limitations on members, either.

"If you wanted to learn to sew so you could make a dress that lights up with your heartbeat, you could do that," SYN Shop board member and spokeswoman Suz Hinton said. "Most people think there's some magic element to technology but you just have to learn."

That mind-set is applied to just about everything in the "maker" community.

Hinton is planning to design and build a pair of leather shoes that light up when specific pressure points are hit while dancing.

SYN Shop president Brian Munroe is creating a sprinkler timer, which communicates, via the Internet, to both the homeowner and the Southern Nevada Water Authority simultaneously.

Uncle Tony, as Hsieh is affectionately referred to by some SYN Shop board members who also moonlight as Zappos employees, offered the organization free use of the building as part of his Downtown Project's ongoing effort to revitalize the downtown community, turning the area into the technological and cultural core of Las Vegas.

In the next couple of months, SYN Shop members will move their operations from founding member Jeff Rosowski's garage into its new site, a former pawn shop.

Munroe said with the new space, the group can focus more on educating the community and fostering a sense of curiosity and wonder about technology during an age when weekly technological advances are common place. It is a personal goal for Munroe, too .

"I've already done all of the necessary things I need to do in my life," he said. "I'm at a point where I want to turn outward to the community and share some of the knowledge, and we have a great opportunity to do that here."

SYN Shop's charitable, arms-wide-open attitude about spreading the word of nerd is exactly what attracted the attention of Hsieh and the Downtown Project.

"One of the cultural elements to a hackerspace community is they tend to go outward and do things with schools, share how to build robots," Downtown Project's Zach Ware recently told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "For us, having this beacon that attracts engineers and goes out and shares that (information) with people fits with our vision."

The nonprofit group hosts a booth during First Friday, downtown, and plans to host weekly open houses at its new site.

SYN Shop also plans to host the Las Vegas Mini Maker Faire from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Feb. 2 at the Historic Fifth Street School, 401 S. Fourth St. Maker fairs are devoted to spotlighting creators and their do-it-yourself projects . SYN Shop is looking for tinkerers, crafters, engineers and artists to participate in the fair. The deadline for submissions is Dec. 22.

For more information on SYN Shop, including how to become a member and how to participate in the shop's events, visit synshop.org. For more information about the Las Vegas Mini Maker Faire, visit makerfairevegas.com.

Contact Paradise/Downtown View reporter Nolan Lister at nlister@viewnews.com or 383-0492.