Mr Avon Perera

Not many people can claim the title of ‘Dinosaur Engineer’, but Mr Avon Perera has designed dozens of mechanical dinosaurs and other life size animatronic creatures over his 12-year career as Senior Mechanical Engineer at Creature Technology Co. The company produces the most technologically sophisticated, creatively inspired and life-like animatronics for arena spectaculars, exhibits, stage shows and theme parks across the world.

Graduating with a double degree in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design at Monash University, Mr Perera’s professional pathway began with designing and engineering electric hospital beds for a small manufacturer in Mordialloc. This inauspicious beginning would set him up with the skillset for designing mechanical systems and mechanisms that would transfer across to the world of animatronics. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer with Engineers Australia and a Registered Professional Engineer of Victoria.

Mr Perera began his dream career designing all of the animatronic dragons for a live arena show of “How To Train Your Dragon”, and has since designed the structural systems of numerous other large scale dinosaurs, dragons, primates, humanoids and even the mascots of the Sochi Winter Olympic games.

His latest completed projects include the “Jurassic World Adventure” attraction and the “How To Train Your Dragon: Untrainable” live show at Universal Beijing Resort. Both attractions earned Universal Studios wins in their respective categories for Outstanding Achievement in the 2022 Themed Entertainment Association Awards recently. Mr Perera was Lead Design Engineer and Project Lead Engineer for the animatronic figures in both attractions, respectively.

Today, Mr Perera is the Lead Mechanical Designer on yet another multi-year, multimillion-dollar international project where he guides and directs the engineering design effort and the other members of the engineering design team. He strongly believes that even the most mundane sounding engineering tasks can be approached with creativity and innovation. To quote one of his favourite artists, Theo Jansen; “the walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds”.

Mr Perera’s favourite part of his job is seeing his creations come to life and watching the reactions of children and adults alike seeing a “real life” dinosaur for the first time!