A mechatronics professor who built a robot with his students said incorporating artificial intelligence into the project sped up the process.

“If I didn’t have ChatGPT, [this project] would have taken, I would say, about 10 times longer,” Callinan said. “That’s how powerful AI is.”

Callinan described the building process, the coding process and how AI influenced the project as it grew during a talk with the student Computer Science Club on Friday.

Callinan has collaborated with 20 of his students since fall 2022 to develop the Star Wars-inspired robot, named K-2SO.

The team created the robot with the help of  3D printers, computer technology like Arduino and Raspberry Pi, the Python programming language and ChatGPT Open AI.

According to Callinan, he initially had no plans to incorporate AI into the project.

Callinan said he thought it was “impossible” to use AI to help build the robot. But, he noted, it was “actually not that hard.”

Callinan told Campus Current after the event that AI is “blowing my mind.”

“It’s bigger than the Internet,” Callinan said. “It’s as big as what the wheel has done to human beings.”

Callinan said despite the influence of AI on the project, the students brought ideas and motivation.

“It takes so much work,” Callinan said. “A lot of the students helped” and I “genuinely appreciate” it.

Alexander Gill, a second-year computer science student, said the lecture was a “really nice opportunity” and a “nice change of pace.”