The T-Rex shakes its enormous head, then rears to its full height. Its massive jaws crash together, each dagger-sized tooth gleaming. You gaze into empty eye sockets and hear it roar as the velociraptors behind it toss their heads nervously. 

Are you dreaming? Is this some horrible version of Nightmare at the Museum? 

No. This is “Dinosaurs in Motion,” the newest exhibit featured at the Natural Science Museum in downtown Raleigh, an installation designed to bring the ancient animals to life through the power of machines.

 The exhibit features dinosaur bones constructed from scrap metal and assembled into life-sized skeletons-—with a twist. These skeletons move, thanks to apparatuses ranging from pulleys to motors.

John Payne, a North Carolina artist and master craftsman, created the 14 replicas. Payne was trained as a metalsmith and died in 2008 at the age of 58 from a stroke. 

Payne was inspired by a visit to The Field Museum in Chicago. After viewing the dinosaur exhibits for hours with his children, Payne saw an opportunity to meld art and science by creating moving replicas. 

The exhibit is a homage to Payne’s life and creative spirit and follows the evolution of Payne’s work as he added components to the replicas piece by piece.

When Payne began creating them, the dinosaurs were just static metal sculptures. He subsequently added springs, pulleys and cables so they became more like puppets. 

Later, he added gears and electricity. Finally, he added remote control devices and electric motors, making the last dinosaurs are extremely lifelike. Built with structures such as ball-and-socket joints, these dinosaurs move just as their real-life counterparts would have millions of years ago. 

“Personally, I love puppets, but he’s stepped beyond,” said Albert Ervin, museum coordinator of special exhibits and 3D movies at the Natural Science Museum. “If he had lived longer, I can see him making ‘Transformers,’ incredible things.”  

Ervin said he’s been pleased with the number of attendees in the one month the museum has been showing the exhibit. 

This is the exhibit’s world premier, and the owners, Imagine Exhibitions Inc., hope to take it on a national tour.

Ervin is excited that the replicas have been brought together, since each piece had to be bought individually from the person who owned it. 

Though the steel sculptures are extremely heavy, Ervin said the pulleys and other mechanisms enable even young children to move them without a problem. 

The museum has made efforts to make the exhibit accessible to all age groups.

For example, a small number of children are frightened of the dinosaurs. For those children, the museum suggests taking them to the other parts of the museum to look at dinosaurs that don’t move before taking them to the exhibit.

 The museum also recently had a day where it turned off the sound and lights to make the exhibit more accommodating to small children. 

“We’ve done everything we can to make it more friendly,” Ervin says. 

Ervin said the creative nature of the exhibit reflects the inventive spirit of the museum. 

“We want people to learn that this whole process of exploring nature can be done in multiple ways,” Ervin said. “It can be done seriously, like a scientist would do it. It can be done playfully, like child would do it. It’s about exploring—playing, having fun and seeing things through fresh eyes.” 

In a video interview on YouTube Payne described his creations as being more than machines. 

“We don’t try to hide the hammer marks or welding marks…we want to show that it’s [made by] a human pounding with a hammer,” Payne said. “I can feel the creatures that I’m moving.”