A 20 year-old built a nuclear fusion prototype in his home for $2,000. Here’s how he did it.

Nazoordeen, a mathematics student at the University of Waterloo, built the device in four weeks over the summer with parts he mostly ordered online. He said he spent about $2,000 from start to finish.

“This is something out of the ordinary for me,” Nazoordeen told Business Insider.

He’d never worked on electrical projects before and isn’t looking to start a career in nuclear physics. He said he built the device because it was fun.

“I can prove it to myself at least that I can make it. And I think that’s a fun part about it,” he said.

“I’d ask Claude, ‘Should I do this dumb thing where I put this inside the plug point?’ And it’d be like absolutely not,” he said, adding that the project had the potential to be dangerous.

“If something wasn’t grounded properly and you mess it up, you would die,” he said. “So even when we were building it, we were always just standing back and using a stick to make sure things were completely grounded.”

Between being a student, having a job, and interning at the language model provider Cohere, he’s not sure where he’ll find the time, but he’s excited to get started.