For Leo Hojonowksi, role play has been a strong interest for him since he was a freshman in high school. When it came time for him to choose a senior project, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

“One thing I knew nothing about was working with my hands,” Leo said, “I decided to figure out how to build a table that’s set up perfectly for Dungeon and Dragons.”

The process isn’t nearly as simple as it seems.

“I’m using some live edge wood, which looks like you’re looking directly into the trunk of a tree,” Leo said. “It looks basically like raw wood.”
“Then we will set it up so it looks kind of like a landscape, and then I’m to pour a liquid epoxy resin, which is basically rubber coating, so it looks like a river is floating through it.”

In order to give the table some more special features, Leo is adding some personal touches to it as well.

“I also got a sword from a flea market that I’m planning on embedding in the epoxy,” Leo said. “I’m also going to embed a monitor, get some screen, some dice and other things.”

Another hard part of his senior project was learning how to do everything. Unlike a lot of seniors, Leo had no history with building anything before.

“I haven’t learned how to do all of this yet, but I’ve basically just been watching video tutorials and teaching myself. I seriously knew nothing going into my project.”

But for Leo, that is all part of the fun.

“It’s all kind of a big experiment,” he said.

Freshman year, Leo also started the Dungeon and Dragons club.

“We were working out of Mr. Lawler’s back closet for a long time,” Leo said.

“Since D&D, I’ve just always loved stuff like that.”

Although this doesn’t directly affect Leo’s future career, he still thinks it will help him in the days to come.

“I think knowing how to build stuff will be helpful for the future.”