Model reduction techniques have previously been applied to evolve the Navier-Stokes equations in time, however finding the minimal dimension needed to correctly capture the key dynamics is not a trivial task. To estimate this dimension we trained an undercomplete autoencoder on weakly chaotic vorticity data (32x32 grid) from Kolmogorov flow simulations, tracking the reconstruction error as a function of dimension. We also trained a discrete time stepper that evolves the reduced order model with a nonlinear dense neural network. The trajectory travels in the vicinity of relative periodic orbits (RPOs) followed by sporadic bursting events. At a dimension of five (as opposed to the full state dimension of 1024), power input-dissipation probability density function is well-approximated; Fourier coefficient evolution shows that the trajectory correctly captures the heteroclinic connections (bursts) between the different RPOs, and the prediction and true data track each other for approximately a Lyapunov time.