Welcome to the portfolio of
Rey Soto
Controls · Animatronics · Systems Engineering
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One engineer, one body of work — seen through the discipline you care about most.
10+ years engineering complex physical and digital systems — industrial controls & automation, enterprise data & machine learning, and themed-entertainment show systems. Currently at Walt Disney World, Magic Kingdom West.
Rey Soto is a multidisciplinary engineer with 10+ years spanning the U.S. Air Force, Boeing aerospace, Universal Orlando, GE power generation, and Walt Disney World — working across industrial controls, automation, enterprise data and machine learning, embedded systems, and themed-entertainment technology. He currently works in Magic Kingdom West as a Ride Systems Technician, applying deep animatronic diagnostics and controls expertise in a live-show environment.
Before Disney, he served as a corporate controls engineer across a 10-plant steel manufacturing network — building the company's first real-time SCADA platform and a machine learning predictive maintenance system from the ground up. Before that: hydraulic ride systems and show timing at Universal, and VelociCoaster commissioning alongside Design Engineering.
He's looking to grow into a role where that blend of field-proven systems knowledge, industrial controls depth, enterprise data & machine-learning work, and hands-on commissioning experience has the most impact — across controls & systems engineering, data & AI, and show-systems technology.
I didn't come to theme park engineering through a single straight line — I came through aerospace precision, global power systems, industrial automation, and a genuine obsession with building things that move, respond, and create a reaction in people.
What I've learned across every discipline is that the most complex systems still have to answer a simple question: does it work when it needs to? At Disney, that question has a weight to it — because when the answer is yes, thousands of guests experience something they'll remember for the rest of their lives.
I build animatronics at home for the same reason I troubleshoot them at work — because the boundary between an engineered system and a moment of wonder is thinner than most people think. I'm motivated by the chance to stand on that line every day, and to push it forward.
I'm also an early adopter of AI-augmented engineering — using agentic tools and machine learning not as shortcuts, but as force multipliers that let me diagnose faster, document better, and solve problems that would otherwise take far longer. This portfolio itself was built with those tools.
Current role as a Ride Systems Technician at Magic Kingdom West — responsible for diagnosing and restoring complex animatronic figures, show lighting systems, and ride control electrical systems in a live guest-facing environment. Established early as the primary technical resource for complex, previously unresolved system issues across multiple show systems disciplines.
One of five corporate-level engineers at a 10-facility steel manufacturing operation, reporting directly to the CEO and CTO in the absence of a Director of Engineering. Responsible for modernizing the company's industrial controls infrastructure, building a company-wide production intelligence platform, and implementing a machine learning-driven predictive maintenance system across all facilities.
Progressed through multiple roles at Universal Orlando, building hands-on expertise across hydraulic motion platforms, show control systems, scene prop sequencing, and full attraction commissioning — culminating in the Commissioning & Test team for VelociCoaster.
Every role in this career has been about one thing: making complex systems do exactly what they need to do, exactly when they need to do it.
The Air Force taught precision and accountability. Boeing taught exacting standards. Universal taught how theme park attractions live and breathe. GE and Insteel expanded the scale. Disney brought it all into focus — because here, engineering doesn't just keep a system running. It keeps a story alive.
The path here isn't always a straight line. But in hindsight, every step pointed the same direction.
Each entry reflects a system built, a problem solved, or a result delivered — not a self-assessed score.
Engineering doesn't stop at the job site. These personal projects represent curiosity in action — building animatronics, machining metal, designing PCBs, writing software and games, and rapid prototyping for the pure challenge of it.
A self-contained, touch-first rhythm game built from scratch for the browser — no frameworks, no game engine. A hand-written HTML5 canvas render loop, a Web Audio timing system, sprite-atlas animation, and an adaptive beatmap engine that scales the pace to your accuracy. Four original songs carry a three-stage journey from the bayou to the riverboat to the city.
The HVAC control board failed. The replacement quote was absurd. There happened to be a Siemens S7-1200 on the shelf and a few small VFDs in the parts bin — so the house got a proper industrial controls system instead. What started as a cost-driven fix turned into a fully functional variable-speed HVAC and septic lift station automation platform running on the same hardware I use professionally.
The external blower and compressor are now VFD-driven — variable speed on the blower, variable flow on the compressor, both tuned through the S7 instead of hardwired on/off switching. The internal blower fan runs on PWM signal as designed, fed from an ET200 distributed I/O station. The lift station for the septic system runs on the same PLC — level-based pump control, fault detection, and alarm logic that would be overkill anywhere except a home built by an automation engineer.
A fully animatronic, wall-mounted themed prop — a Jolly Roger skull mounted at the center of a Spanish galleon-style ship's wheel, designed as a complete show piece. The skull features articulated jaw movement driven by a custom servo and linkage system, with hollow eye sockets faithful to the character. The ship's wheel serves both as the structural mount and as the thematic context, evoking the helm of a pirate vessel straight out of the Golden Age of Sail.
Fabricated entirely in-house — structural components CNC milled from aluminum on my home-built machine, organic shell and detail parts 3D printed. Designed for wall installation as a finished, display-ready themed environment piece. No kits, no off-the-shelf assemblies — every part designed, machined, printed, and assembled from scratch.
The most ambitious personal project to date — a fully articulated, full-size Wall-E figure built from the ground up. Currently in the CAD design and animation programming phase, this build is a complete systems engineering challenge: mechanical structure and drive systems, multi-axis servo control for head, eye, arm, and track movement, custom electronics and PCB design for the control architecture, and character animation programming to bring the personality of the character to life.
Wall-E is deceptively complex — the character's appeal comes almost entirely from subtle, expressive motion. Getting that right requires the same sensitivity to performance quality that separates a functional animatronic from a memorable one.
What started as a wiring problem on the Wall-E build turned into something with real implications for any complex animatronic figure. Seventeen motors across a figure's arms and neck require 68 individual encoder wires routed through narrow, continuously-flexing joint cavities. Wire fatigue from that constant flex is a primary driver of downtime in complex multi-axis animatronic systems.
PIXIE is a custom encoder multiplexing bridge — three RP2350 nodes capture all encoder signals locally and transmit position data over a single 12-conductor cable using the PSYNC source-synchronous protocol, then regenerate bit-for-bit identical A/B quadrature outputs at the servo drives. The drives see no change. 68 wires become 36. As a side effect, each arm assembly becomes a Lemo quick-disconnect module that swaps in minutes instead of hours.
This is a PoC being developed independently — the intent is to validate the concept at small scale and demonstrate a transferable reliability solution for complex multi-axis animatronic figures.
Designed, built, and commissioned a custom CNC milling machine capable of machining aluminum. Full mechanical design, motion control system integration, and toolpath programming — built from first principles.
Designing and fabricating custom printed circuit boards for electronics projects — schematic capture, layout design, component selection, and assembly. Full hardware development from concept to working board.
Leveraging 3D printing as a rapid prototyping tool for mechanical components, custom brackets, animatronic parts, and engineering concepts. Design in CAD, iterate fast, validate before committing to machined or fabricated parts.
Currently at Walt Disney World, Magic Kingdom West and pursuing a B.S. in Engineering at UCF through the Disney Aspire Program.
