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homePage view ("Atrium")
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Phishing challenge main view
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example of phishing questions with response feedback
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phishing challenge progress
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demo of 2FA pairing challenge
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demo of wifi challenge with sample feedback
Inspiration
At HackHarvard 2025, I created SpaceSafe, a virtual reality app designed to explain educational cybersecurity content through gamified challenges. It is intended to to extend human intuition by helping users with minimal technical knowledge and experience understand critical concepts that play a significant role in our everyday lives, especially in this digital age where many have begun to rely increasingly on technology but do not necessarily understand the accompanying risks. Based on the principle of active experience, this app encourages users to make mistakes while learning in a controlled environment with no real repercussions, rather than losing valuable data, privacy, and money in real life. In the future, I hope to make a positive impact in educating people about the essential knowledge of data safety and privacy so that they can use technology safely and responsibly.
What it does
SpaceSafe is an interactive VR education experience that merges human perception with cybersecurity awareness. Instead of reading about digital safety, users physically experience each concept through mini-game challenges that use problem-solving skills to simulate real-world risks.
Currently, the app includes Phishing Alley (which detects fake messages and identify subtle cues that reveal phishing attempts), 2FA Fortress (where users can build digital defenses by connecting secure authentication layers), and Wi-Fi Lab (which enables users to explore the unseen risks of public networks and visualize how encryption works). There are also other challenges still in development, including topics like Message Encryption/Signing, Password Strength, and App Permissions.
How I built it
This app was developed in Xcode using SwiftUI (for the main interface and navigation) and RealityKit (to develop the mini game immersive experience) for the Apple Vision Pro. Each mini-game and learning space was designed as its own interactive world, connected through an "Atrium hub" that visually represents the user’s progress.
Challenges I ran into
State Management Bugs When I first tried connecting the Phishing Alley results screen, the app would loop infinitely or freeze after pressing “See Results.” Debugging SwiftUI state bindings and asynchronous updates in VisionOS was painful but taught me how to isolate global states and create conditional resets to prevent feedback loops. There were many instances where I had to rebuild the entire navigation structure until I found a stable method for managing spatial canvases.
Scaling and Positioning Objects occasionally spawned ten feet above the user’s head. I fixed this by reconfiguring all scene anchors to scale relative to the camera’s local transform rather than the world origin.
Going Solo Building a full VR project solo meant I was the developer, designer, tester, and debugger all in one. There was no one to hand off bugs to, so I had to solve every crash and refactor every file myself. It was frustrating, but also deeply rewarding because I learned a lot through the process.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I am proud that I was able to develop an interactive VR app that is fully functioning, while also balancing education through the activities.
What I learned
While I have previous experience creating iOS apps using SwiftUI in Xcode, it was my first time creating an app for the Apple Vision Pro, so this project was a huge learning experience. Not only did I learn how to develop a VR-based app, but also how to write educational content in a way that can be easy to understand for users of all ages. I spent a lot of time coming up with ways to make the challenge elements and the educational content as well-knitted as possible. I learned how VisionOS handles asynchronous rendering, how to manage complex state in immersive environments, and most importantly–how to stay patient when nothing works for hours.
What's next for SpaceSafe
There are many things I plan to continue to develop next and am eager to get started on. First, I plan to add more depth to the educational curriculum of the challenges I have currently created, as well as those that are still in progress such as message encryption/signing, password strength, and app permissions. I would also like to create a similarly-modeled app centered on the topic of AI literacy, as there is also a rapidly expanding need for responsible AI use.
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