Vegas Neon Cowboy

For Autodesk University 2026, I was asked to come up with a unique creation that highlights the engineering theme of the show while fitting in with its location in Las Vegas, Nevada. I chose to use the iconic Vegas Vic neon cowboy statue as inspiration, but put my own spin on it with a Teensy 4.1 development board, a pair of servos, lots of LEDs, and cartoonified version of me made by a local artist. It required a lot of modeling — both in the Fusion sense and actually getting photographed as the Cowboy!

You can see the "Neon Cowboy" build video below in my garage before taking it to AU 2026:

Build Resources

• STL files and 3D model on Printables
• Code and bill of materials available on GitHub

I use italics to reference specific 3D-printed parts in the writeup below.

Overview

The Cowboy uses 2020 aluminum extrusion as its frame, to which corrugated plastic cutouts for front and back are attached. A pair of servos/linkages rotate the arm assemblies up and down to greet people passing by, and a string of addressable LEDs provide lighting. Internal speakers play sound clips, or it can be hooked up to an external speaker if more volume is needed.

Mechanical

The structure and shoulder mechanisms were designed in Autodesk Fusion. 2020 aluminum extrusion forms the basic structure, while 3D-printed 2020-linkages, along with inside corner brackets, screws, and t-nuts are used to hold things together.

Each linkage setup consists of a servo and servo-mount, along with a pillow-block 3D-printed bearing, attached to the aluminum extrusion via t-nuts. A 6mm diameter, 70mm length shoulder bolt is used as the axis of rotation. A second shoulder bolt is offset and push/pulled via a linkage attached to the nearby servo via a 3mm diameter, 100mm length rod and 3D-printed ball-head. The custom ball-head uses a heat-set insert for rod attachment, while the other end attaches via an off-the-shelf ball head that came with the connecting rod.

With this setup in place, each servo can move its respective arm via a shoulder rotation-wheel to which the arm mounts. A shoulder safety-cylinder cover (not shown in the images above) keeps people from reaching into the mechanism.

Assembly

3D-printed large angle bracket supports are used to join extrusion sections at 90º, while rectangular 2020-linkage sections are used to keep members parallel and to attach the waist sections together. The shoulder section is held up from the bottom using inside corner brackets.

Art is mounted to the 2020 extrusion structure via velcro attached to spacer-wide-velcro pedestals and the outer artwork via hot glue. Electronics and speakers are mounted to the electronics-panel just below the waist, and covered by the electronics-guarding.

The middle 2020-linkages joining the the vertical extrusion sections allow the device to be disassembled for transport or the height to be adjusted depending on the cowboy art. The shoulder cross members can also be adjusted vertically and the horizontal spacing can be adjusted by changing the pillow-block bearing and servo-mount locations.

The front pedestal attaches to the main structure via large angle brackets and optionally inside corner brackets, while 2020-linkage plates are used to keep the structure rigid. 2020-cap pieces are added to the top of the extrusion and fastened with hot glue to avert sharp corners and keep the look consistent, while a button-holder is added to accommodate the button that triggers the display.

3D-print files, as well as assembly models are found on the Printables repository listed above.

Artwork & Sound

The front and back cutout artwork was designed by local artist Jay Kent. He took pictures of me with a cowboy hat on in a thumb-pointing pose, then turned this into a cartoonified version for a printer to turn into the real-life Cowboy cutout.

Branding badges were produced for Avnet, Hackster.io, and Autodesk. These were 3D-printed and stuck on the Cowboy with disk magnets hot glued to the recesses in the badges. Corresponding magnets were used on the back of the cutout. Additional signage was printed and attached to the podium/button stand on the front as.

I recorded the sound files, available here, after thinking of things that seemed kind of cowboy-like + Autodesk University conference appropriate. Files were cleaned up using Audacity.

Electrical

The brain of the Neon Cowboy is a Teensy 4.1 board, along with a Teensy Audio Shield. This controls the two servos, along with audio amplifier/speakers via a custom screw terminal breakout that I designed and is available for purchase here. A simple schematic of the setup is shown below:

My build includes two level shifter boards (also my design) that convert 3.3V to 5V for the servos. This is likely optional, and I suspect the motors would still function without them.

The LED strip is independent of the rest of the circuit, and simply plugs into a separate USB-A power supply using the included controller. This was done in part for simplicity due to the project's tight timeline, and also as a bit of a fallback — if either the lighting or the main circuit were to malfunction there would have still been something to display.

The LED strip attaches to the perimeter of the Cowboy via led-holders to which the mounting hardware that came with the strip screws in. Hardware was attached to the back of the Cowboy art via velcro and hot glue. Both the LEDs and the Teensy-based electronics worked as designed at the show.

Code

Code is available here on GitHub, and development was heavily assisted by AI tools. A button press initiates arm waving and a random audio clip from the speaker. Arms are also programmed to wave intermittently to attract attention when the button isn't pressed for a while.

Successes, implementation, thoughts and potential improvements

Installation at AU 2026 was successful, though it did take a bit of effort to unbox, reassemble, and figure out where to put it. The built-in speakers that I was using sounded good in my garage, but were insufficient for use in the giant conference center at the Venetian where the event took place. This was fixed via an external speaker with an aux jack, which was a bit of a process.

I outline the details of My Manic Las Vegas Trade Show Trip Here if you'd like to know more about my experience in general.

The video above shows it waving with LED lights on display, and saying various cowboy phrases at an appropriate volume. I was quite happy with how it turned out and considered it a success — especially given the sub-one-month timeline, you can make your own assessment.

Other thoughts/improvement ideas:

• I recessed the PCB between aluminum extrusion sections. This provided good clearance for the artwork on the front, but this also blocked access somewhat.
• The custom Teensy PCB is nice, but if I redesigned it, I might rearrange the 5V, 3.3V, and GND pin locations.
• The acoustics and sound environment in the gigantic Venetian conference center where it was on display are much different than my garage. Best to have a bit of headroom.
• I should have been more careful with my references when modeling the device. The Fusion model has a few reference warnings in it, which has little to no effect on the project, but it bothers me a little bit. Perhaps I should learn not to sweat the small stuff.
• I made heavy use of components in the Fusion design, which is extremely helpful when you're dealing with non-trivial assemblies here. Still, some of this requires a bit of thought to implement in an elegant manner.

Thanks for reading!

You can see more of my hacking/DIY exploits on the Jeremy Cook Builds YouTube page, read my semi-technical musings at TechAdjacent.io — including this writeup on my wild trip to Las Vegas to display this device — or you can email me: [email protected]!

Above as seen on Twitter