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IVINS, Washington County — When ninth grader Tyson Duran was asked to build a minotaur prop for Vista School's theater production, he didn't just make a costume — he engineered a towering animatronic minotaur.
With a passion for robots in film and special effects, Tyson told St. George News it was his love for Disneyland rides and professional Halloween props that led him to say "yes" when his teacher, Jordan Bartholomew, asked him to make a robot minotaur prop for the drama department's school play.
"The skills Duran has developed have come from his own curiosity and discovery outside of the classroom," Bartholomew, a technology teacher and Vex V5 Robotics Competition coach, said in an email to St. George News. "He has a passion for all things scary and making contraptions that move."
"My favorite part is building something people can enjoy," Tyson said. "I just love how you can make something look really realistic ... . I'm still learning lots more about animatronics and electronics, and we're getting more into servos now — servos are just motors with lots of gears, and they have a little detector guy in there that detects the position of the servo, so it's basically more of a sophisticated motor."
Tyson said he plans to attend a southern Utah high school in the fall but has yet to choose which one.
