FOX Weather featured Disasterville, the Army National Guard’s mixed-reality program that introduces high school students to disaster response through virtual emergencies. The segment brings National Guard representatives into the studio to discuss how the experience challenges students to respond to situations inspired by the Guard’s work.
Groove Jones helped bring Disasterville to life through shared, room-scale mixed reality. Created in collaboration with Team DDB and TMA, the experience places students inside simulated wildfire, flood and earthquake missions, connecting interactive technology with the Guard’s role in serving communities during emergencies.
The technology behind that shared experience is Share Space, part of our GrooveTech system. It aligns multiple headsets to the same physical environment so participants can move through one room while seeing a shared virtual world. That common reference allows teammates to see one another’s movements in relation to the mission and the space around them.
In Disasterville, up to five students participate together using Meta Quest 3 headsets. Natural hand tracking supports controller-free interaction, while physical props help connect the digital scenarios to objects students can hold and use. Rescue equipment and set pieces, including a raft, make the missions a physical, collaborative experience.
For a program designed to visit schools, portability matters. Share Space uses standalone headset tracking and a custom calibration process to establish the shared environment without permanent tracking installations. Operators position physical markers during setup, allowing the system to calculate how the virtual scene should align with the room.
The platform also synchronizes participants’ head and hand movements over a local network. Staff can control sessions, reset experiences and monitor the system through operator tools. It can run on a local server without an internet connection, supporting deployment in venues where connectivity may be unreliable.
The goal of Disasterville is to give students a closer look at National Guard service through participation. On-site recruiters guide students, answer questions and connect the simulated missions to opportunities in the Guard. The experience is offered free to students and schools.
FOX Weather’s coverage puts that approach in the spotlight, introducing viewers to a program built around students responding to virtual emergencies together.
See the Full Case Study
Case study – https://www.groovejones.com/disasterville-mixed-reality-experience-army-national-guard
