In most situations, University of Maryland scientist Guangyang Fang would advise you not to walk into a lightning strike. But now, he’s encouraging everyone to dive right into a thunderstorm – in virtual reality, that is.
Fang has recently released “Faraday Lightning Safety”, a mixed-reality game now available for free at the Meta Store. The game demonstrates how the Faraday cage effect – the phenomenon where an enclosed conductive structure shields its interior from external electric fields by redistributing charges and blocking electromagnetic waves – protects people from lightning during a thunderstorm.
“Instead of just looking at a diagram or reading an explanation, virtual reality and mixed reality lets you step inside a concept. You can walk around a thunderstorm, see lightning strikes in real time, view everything from a top-down omniscient perspective, and immediately understand how protection works, which is tough to achieve with traditional methods,” said Fang, a lightning scientist currently researching lightning detection and physics, “Plus, with mixed reality, we can seamlessly blend virtual elements into the real world, making the experience even more intuitive.”
In the game, players of all ages can guide Spark, a virtual owl, to safety by moving it to various locations like a car, beach, or house. As lightning strikes, Spark reacts accordingly— jumping joyfully if protected by the Faraday cage effect or fainting momentarily if exposed.
The game merges the real world with Spark’s virtual environment through mixed reality, leveraging the Meta Quest 3’s advanced spatial computing capabilities to project gameplay onto a virtual tabletop within the player’s space. This approach creates an intuitive and comfortable experience for newcomers to immersive technology while encouraging engagement from spectators.
“Virtual and mixed reality has the incredible ability to make abstract concepts feel real. When it comes to something like lightning safety, it’s one thing to read about it, but it’s another to experience it firsthand. I wanted to create something interactive and engaging that people– especially students– could really connect with. The idea of guiding a virtual owl to safety while learning about the Faraday cage effect just felt like the perfect mix of fun and education,” said Fang.
Fang and his development team, which includes University of Maryland Department of Computer Science student interns Damian Figueroa and Samuel Wiggins, envision Faraday Lightning Safety as a glimpse into the future of geoscience education. Immersive technology enables users to explore complex scientific concepts interactively from anywhere in the world. The team plans to expand their work, developing more educational experiences on Geoscience topics such as the water cycle and lightning classification. The game will also be demonstrated at the ESSIC booth on Maryland Day, the upcoming University of Maryland open house event on April 26.
In addition to this game’s release, the team has launched the “XR @ CISESS” website to showcase their immersive technology projects, such as the Terrality weather/climate data visualization app and the Virtual Proving Ground and Training Center (VPGTC) platform. The site also highlights their outreach efforts and provides an introduction to immersive XR technology and insights into the development behind these innovative applications.
Faraday Lightning Safety is now available for free download on the Meta Quest store, and is compatible with Quest 2, Quest Pro, Quest 3, and Quest 3S headsets. A video demo of Faraday Lightning Safety can be found on their website.
