We help coaches and athletes catch unseen movements to increase their odds of winning through wearable motion capture. - Medium

Brave Virtual Worlds - Medium

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/612/1*wqsA7SDfdS64ADptwqOAJg.jpeg"></figure>We’re all familiar with the concept of sports rehab: from a devastating injury to an arduous journey in physical therapy. Exercises in PT can effectively treat an athlete’s pain and build back their previous strength until they return to normal function.
But what about before athletes get injured? Is there a way to proactively avoid certain injuries?
Introducing prehab: the newest term to describe taking preventative measures against injuries. It takes your warm-up to a new level: besides simple stretches, prehab targets small aches and pains before they grow into bigger problems for the body. It functions differently for every athlete, since everyone deals with their own movement patterns. However, as a whole, prehab encompasses exercises to improve range of motion, build strength, and grow stability.
<h3>Use Prehab to Protect Your Body</h3>
There are many different ways to use prehab to protect your body. Observe the following examples for different exercises you could do to prevent future injuries.
For athletes in baseball, the shoulder is one of the most used joints in the body for hitting and pitching. When athletes lack shoulder stability, the joint has a higher probability to rotate too far and tear or pull out of the socket during a swinging or throwing motion. It is imperative that these athletes engage in exercises that improve mobility and stability — such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=155ey6fDurs">upper shoulder rotations</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJKSlfLX10">child’s pose</a> — to prevent shoulder injuries.
For weightlifters, good core strength ensures proper weightlifting techniques. Poor core strength leads to a rounded or extended back during exercises, which can eventually lead to a damaged spine and back muscles. As a good core prehab, weightlifters can participate in exercises that go against rotating the spine. These include <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeKv5oX_6GY">planks</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_BYB0R-4Ws">dead bugs</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTqlJ0aoJlM">renegade rows</a>.
<h3>How Do You Know Which Prehab Exercises to Do?</h3>
First, it is important to think about which muscles you’re engaging in your workouts. If you are a tennis player, you’ll want to do exercises that engage and strengthen your rotator cuff. If you are a sprinter, you’ll want to strengthen your hamstring and other leg muscles to prepare for your sprints.
But sometimes it’s difficult to determine all of the exercises you should be doing. When you want a deep analysis of your movement without having to go to a physical therapist, you can turn to wearable motion capture as your solution. Wearable motion capture records and analyzes your movement and pinpoints areas in which you can improve. In just 5 minutes, you can have all of the answers about your movement at your fingertips.
Want to know if Brave is the right solution for you? Learn more by contacting us <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">here</a>.
<h3>Learn More About Brave</h3>
Read our other blogs <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">here</a>.
Visit our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/">website</a>.
Join our <a href="https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16075ccceef95e48c79ac3fed&amp;id=19b7e224c2">email list</a>.
Watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__ESWAc4yw&amp;t=2s">demo video</a>.
Try our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">product</a>.
Interested investors, reach out to our CEO William Kodama: wskodama@bravevirtual.com
Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=824c1c28edd" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/what-is-prehab-824c1c28edd">What is Prehab?</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">Brave Virtual Worlds</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What is Prehab?

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*nfhJGgi2FQS_v_DxR1CSsw.jpeg"></figure>At Brave, we give athletes the power to improve their movement through Valor, our wearable motion capture suit that records and analyzes the body’s movement, resulting in better performance, injury prevention, and quicker improvement over time. If you haven’t read our blog on how Valor improves golf hitting mechanics, read it <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/valor-impacts-golf-swing-mechanics-1bbe47d818ae">here</a>. This blog will focus on how baseball athletes improve with Valor.
<h3>Valor’s Place In Baseball Training</h3>
Achieving the best baseball swing begins with understanding the mechanics behind the movements building up to the moment your bat contacts the ball. Hitters should make sure that among other things, they are connected to the ground and in a strong athletic position from the start to the end of the swing.
The small mechanics, such as lining up your back knee, back hip, and head or bending your top arm at the right angle, are difficult to keep track of during a swing — after all, there are other factors that come into play. <a href="https://twitter.com/bvent11">Brendan Venter</a>, a coach at D-BAT Lewisville and former minor leaguer, explains the following:
“Hitting mechanics in baseball is dependent on the athlete’s intention, pitch selection, and anticipation.”
With Valor, the mechanics are broken down in a digestible way for athletes and coaches alike. By providing 3D visuals of the athlete’s swing and tracking valuable data, such as the degrees of torso or pelvis rotation, Valor gives objectivity to the learning process.
As Venter works with his athletes to optimize their swing, he uses Valor to validate and train the correct kinematic sequence of movement. With the Valor suit on, he asks his athletes to take their best swing first, to identify how they are currently moving and second, to use Valor’s accurate and objective data to correct their movement. Based on the results of the motion capture, he trains his athletes accordingly in conjunction with their intention and anticipation.
<h3>Valor In A Session</h3>
In a training session, Venter used Valor to affirm his own movements. Before delving into the analysis of Valor’s software, he said, “the peak velocity should be right at contact [between the ball and the bat.]”
Sure enough, Valor’s analytics displayed just that: the graphs showed a spike right as he made contact with the ball. Looking at the additional data captured by the suit, he saw that his other mechanics were in order.
“The pelvis [graph] spikes before the torso, which is great,” said Venter.
Valor’s objective feedback gives athletes and coaches a new way of training. The constant validation from its data allows for a quicker learning experience, and consequently, quicker improvement.
<h3>Learn More About Brave</h3>
Read our other blogs <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">here</a>.
Visit our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/">website</a>.
Join our <a href="https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16075ccceef95e48c79ac3fed&amp;id=19b7e224c2">email list</a>.
Watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__ESWAc4yw&amp;t=2s">demo video</a>.
Try our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">product</a>.
Interested investors, reach out to our CEO William Kodama: wskodama@bravevirtual.com
Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=e38852661d3c" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/how-valor-improves-baseball-hitting-mechanics-e38852661d3c">How Valor Improves Baseball Hitting Mechanics</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">Brave Virtual Worlds</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How Valor Improves Baseball Hitting Mechanics

<h3>How Valor Helps Golf Instruction</h3>
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/966/1*VSEJq0Z1-q0KCOw3mUfnPA.png"></figure>For golfers — Valor has the power to transform and strengthen your swing. From start to end, Valor sensors track every inch of your motion, and the software instantly analyzes it, from which it can tell you that your right shoulder is a bit too high or your posture is poor. Our partner Bill Fedder, PGA Director of Golf Instruction at the Club at Glenmore, uses Valor to help his athletes improve and succeed. Read on to learn more about how Valor influences golf swing mechanics.
<h3>How Bill Fedder Uses Valor</h3>
Bill Fedder, son of two golf pros, has played golf all of his life. Recently, in the 2022 PGA Professional Championship, he hit a <a href="https://www.pgaprochampionship.com/news-media/videos/2022/bill-fedder-aces-no-9">hole-in-one</a> on his final hole of the championship. He works at The Club at Glenmore as Director of Instruction and leads The Club’s Rotella Academy of Excellence — a high-performance junior golf academy. He has begun introducing his students to Valor and taking them through the experience.
Before Valor, Bill would use a TrackMan and cameras to understand his athletes’ motion. When asked what Valor added to his coaching, Bill said that the TrackMan measures the club and the ball, but Valor can measure how the body is moving — and to him, this made all the difference.
“It’s super important because previously golf pros have used cameras [to capture movement]. Now, with Valor, I can look at everything — any view that I could possibly want — which is certainly helpful for the instructor but potentially more impactful for the learner,” said Bill. By escaping the limits of camera frames, Bill and his athletes can explore views never looked at in golf before.
In his lessons, he enjoys looking at the graphs displayed on Valor’s software and the individual data points to learn more about an athlete’s swing. He recognizes that his students most likely do not understand those numbers, so instead, he shows them the animation of themselves. The animation shows students both how they are currently moving and the progress they are making. To them, it serves as validation for all of their hard work.
How Does Valor Improve Performance
In golf, there is one thing that matters: the contact between the club and the ball. The body controls the club, so every motion preceding that contact is extremely important to determine where the ball will go. Bill works with his students to correct their movement and maximize the efficiency of their swing.
“My goal of using Valor is to speed up the learning process for the student. My goal is to help my players reach their goals, and the quicker they can reach their goals, the better,” said Bill.
Valor is a valuable resource for coaches and athletes alike to accelerate results. It records movement instantly, displays poor motion, and tracks progress over time. To use Valor is to improve.
<h3>Learn More About Brave</h3>
Read our other blogs <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">here</a>.
Visit our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/">website</a>.
Join our <a href="https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16075ccceef95e48c79ac3fed&amp;id=19b7e224c2">email list</a>.
Watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__ESWAc4yw&amp;t=2s">demo video</a>.
Try our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">product</a>.
Interested investors, reach out to our CEO William Kodama: wskodama@bravevirtual.com
Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=1bbe47d818ae" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/valor-impacts-golf-swing-mechanics-1bbe47d818ae">Valor Impacts Golf Swing Mechanics</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">Brave Virtual Worlds</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Valor Impacts Golf Swing Mechanics

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Bg-pAj40Vl3fo6qAtWgVqg.jpeg"></figure><h3>Valor’s Software</h3>
Brave’s Valor captures motion anytime, anywhere. Consisting of a suit and accompanying software, the Brave team has spent over two years fine-tuning the product with constant customer feedback to become the best version possible. In a previous blog, I wrote about the development of the suit. If you haven’t already, read it <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/about-valor-4557f7155c5a">here</a>. Now, I will write about the other — equally important — half of Valor: its software.
<h3>The Software’s History</h3>
Valor’s software is integral to the motion capture technology: it takes the data collected by the sensors and turns it into easily digestible visualizations and metrics for coaches and athletes to use as a launchpad for improvement. The following is a brief history of its development.
At first, the team worked to integrate the hardware with a mobile application via Bluetooth: the main question was to figure out how to collect the data, visualize it, and transmit it to the cloud. Evan Magnusson, Brave’s CTO and CFO, first developed a Bluetooth class for the mobile app, and then the team built a user interface on top of that. After building multiple versions of the mobile app, the final, most recent version is one that is easy to use, can read all of the data from the sensors, and display the analytics from it.
During the same time period, the team also worked on an additional piece of software: an online dashboard. Originally created for Brave’s physical therapy partners, it was developed as a home-exercise platform that would create workouts and routines. However, it later became a “powerhouse tool:” a site for all the data collected and processed that was back then not needed on the app. Brave’s team, through continuous customer feedback and software iterations, realized that their users preferred the mobile application over the online dashboard and so they concentrated their efforts on perfecting the latter.
“The mobile app is moving to the forefront of the Brave software. It can do almost everything the online dashboard can, but easier since it does not have the limits present on running a web application in a browser without the need to package it as a whole separate desktop application,” said Dhyey Parikh, Brave’s COO, in an interview.
<h3>The Software’s Hidden Gems</h3>
Valor’s software provides many unique features to both coaches and athletes.
“The features that stand out the most are the instant replays and the ability to record any sort of movement,” said Dhyey.
The instant replay feature allows the user to visually see how they move, which is key to understanding and subsequently, improving movement. Users enjoy this feature because it brings their movement to a digital world in which they can analyze and perfect anything they would like. Secondly, the collection of any sort of movement is important because it does not limit users’ improvement. Valor’s software grants people the possibility to explore any and all of their motions.
The software’s efficiency, simple mobile application design, and features make it a tool worth investing in. Being built and perfected since the summer of 2020, it helps users improve performance and reduce injuries without limitations.
<h3>Learn More About Brave</h3>
Read our other blogs <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">here</a>.
Visit our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/">website</a>.
Join our <a href="https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16075ccceef95e48c79ac3fed&amp;id=19b7e224c2">email list</a>.
Watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__ESWAc4yw&amp;t=2s">demo video</a>.
Try our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">product</a>.
Interested investors, reach out to our CEO William Kodama: wskodama@bravevirtual.com
Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=e82f51a723d4" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/the-software-behind-valor-e82f51a723d4">The Software Behind Valor</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">Brave Virtual Worlds</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Software Behind Valor

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*SO2ATT8BjUa0RRl9s0oMfg.jpeg"></figure><h3>Our Partnership with D-BAT Lewisville</h3>
For the past year, Brave has maintained a partnership with VFG Sports Performance, the ownership group for multiple D-BAT (Lewisville, Waco, and SE Arkansas) indoor baseball and softball training facilities. Many conversations with the ownership team of Cory Legner and Dan Ortmeier, their staff, and athletes have helped grow and strengthen our relationship: directly affecting our company direction and product. Valor could not have become what it is today without their feedback and continued support.
<h3>D-BAT Lewisville’s use of Valor: Beginning with the Weight Room</h3>
Early into our relationship, we realized that our values aligned: D-BAT Lewisville also envisions Valor as a tool to map and understand the motion of the human body. Currently, the three Valor suits being housed in D-BAT Lewisville’s facility are used by athletes of all ages in their weight room, batting cages, and bullpens.
Aaron Corwin, The Program’s Director of Sports Performance at D-BAT Lewisville believes that improvement begins in the weight room. In the weight room, Aaron takes multiple mobility assessments of male and female athletes with Valor to identify key movements that are not normally visible while pitching or hitting. With Valor, slow, exaggerated movements in strength and conditioning practice translate into readily available data for coaches to share with their athletes.
“He wants to look at areas such as an athletes’ knee angle: is it bending properly? Does it bend enough? What is the angle at which the knee is bending?” said Dhyey Parikh, Brave’s COO, in an interview. Dhyey has worked closely with Aaron as they co-created Valor.
Aaron’s research background has informed his use of Valor. He understands that if an individual’s range of motion is limited at a certain joint, it can prevent them from doing certain exercises or stop them from even getting onto the field to play. Even a simple deviation in hip rotation can cause major injuries for the athlete, resulting in years of surgery and physical therapy. Therefore, Valor to Aaron is a tool to understand motion to enhance performance, but also to prevent future injury.
By combining the data collected in the assessments conducted in the weight room, as well as in the batting cages and bullpens, Aaron wants to understand the fundamental biomechanics of an athlete completely. He looks forward to creating a curriculum where he takes assessments in all three facility areas and helps athletes improve their movement.
“Valor gives us the capability to slow down full movement patterns in 4D motion while also providing game-changing analytics. Understanding how an athlete moves, where their strengths and weaknesses are, and how we can improve their sports-specific movements is going to revolutionize the way we are able to assess and train athletes to not only increase performance, but help decrease the risk of injury. Valor solidifies what we are doing in the weight room and has an immediate impact on an athlete’s on-field performance,” said Corwin.
In summary, D-BAT Lewisville has seen many benefits in its training experience since the introduction of Valor. Besides revolutionizing their baseball practice, Valor does so in a time-effective way. Only taking 12 minutes to conduct all mobility assessments for upper and low bodies of athletes, Aaron and others are happy with the easy-to-use technology.
<h3>Learn More About Brave</h3>
Read our other blogs <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">here</a>.
Visit our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/">website</a>.
Join our <a href="https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16075ccceef95e48c79ac3fed&amp;id=19b7e224c2">email list</a>.
Watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__ESWAc4yw&amp;t=2s">demo video</a>.
Try our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">product</a>.
Interested investors, reach out to our CEO William Kodama: wskodama@bravevirtual.com
Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=1a830d83d4be" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/braves-partnership-with-vfg-sports-performance-1a830d83d4be">Brave’s Partnership with VFG Sports Performance</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">Brave Virtual Worlds</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brave’s Partnership with VFG Sports Performance

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*DFzdfO7-3BPgfJ7WMRadJQ.jpeg"></figure>This blog will share an inside look into a new and emerging world: the Athletaverse™. It is a place where athletes can come together to work out, compete, and improve with coaching in a physical-virtual space; a place accessible for all who put the Valor suit on.
<h3>The Metaverse</h3>
Let’s start broad: what is the metaverse? The metaverse is the future of the internet. It is not necessarily an addition of new technology, rather, it is a change in how we interact and use technology. Simply, the metaverse is a fully digital world that goes beyond the one we currently exist in. It can consist of virtual reality — a computer-generated experience — or augmented reality — an experience characterized by the combination of digital and physical worlds. If you haven’t already, read more about Valor’s future with extended reality and the possibilities that can arise from their union <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/valors-future-with-extended-reality-93ac281a5967">here</a>.
The metaverse hopes to create new digital experiences for people to buy and sell goods, interact with one another, and connect to other sports players. Read on to learn more about the “Athletaverse” and all the benefits it offers to athletes.
<h3>The Emergence of the Athletaverse</h3>
The Athletaverse is a subsection of the metaverse. It is a virtual space for athletes and sport lovers to engage in training, take part in friendly competition, and have a place for community building. Currently, applications such as <a href="https://www.strava.com/">Strava </a>exist for users and all of their GPS-tracking needs. Strava turns cell phones into a mode for tracking, analyzing, and improving workouts and other training sessions. It allows users to connect with friends on the app, creating a social network for athletes.
The Athletaverse tries to capture everything Strava and other apps do and more, with the addition of full-body movement tracking. Essentially, the Athletaverse serves as a tool to store athletic progress, share training statistics with friends and other athletes, and compete with a global community: all in a virtual world. Think of Wii Sports, but with your actual body as the controller, with progress represented in a pervasive Web3 manner.
<h3>Brave’s Athletaverse™</h3>
The Valor suit enables Brave’s Athletaverse. With the suit on your body, you add a layer of reality — copying physical activity to the virtual Athletaverse. This opens up a virtual world with endless features — features designed to athletics as a whole accessible to any and all athletes.
First and foremost, security and giving full control over recorded biometric data to athletes is a top priority. Athletes choose what they would like to share, what they keep private, and even have the option to monetize specific movements that may be of value to others — think of Tiger Woods’ golf swing. This is enabled by handling access control on the blockchain.
For athletes who wish to keep their training statistics private, they can choose to experience the Athletaverse solo. However, for those who wish to share their workout statistics, they may coexist in a shared virtual space with other athletes. By sharing their training data, athletes can engage in friendly competition with each other, see who completes workouts and how they do so. They can also share personal scores and compete on public or organization leaderboards. Brave’s Athletaverse is made for both casual and competitive athletes who wish to improve their skills.
Brave’s Valor suit also isn’t limited to the Athletaverse. It also provides an input for other virtual worlds and the metaverse, providing a full-body controller for users who wish to play virtual games with friends or interact with as their online avatars. Simply putting on a Valor suit can bring together people across the world to play games, compete, and communicate, thus strengthening the community of people globally.
Brave’s Athletaverse embodies the spirit of Brave: it offers a virtual space for competition, fun, learning, and growth. Its accessibility and all-encompassing nature help open up opportunities for all people to grow and immerse themselves in a different world — one that will soon be commonplace. Follow us on our journey as we create our Athletaverse and explore the intersection of technology and human possibility.
<h3>Learn More About Brave Section</h3>
Read our other blogs <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">here</a>.
Visit our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/">website</a>.
Join our <a href="https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16075ccceef95e48c79ac3fed&amp;id=19b7e224c2">email list</a>.
Watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__ESWAc4yw&amp;t=2s">demo video</a>.
Try our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">product</a>.
Interested investors, reach out to our CEO William Kodama: wskodama@bravevirtual.com
Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=9644def211c5" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/braves-athletaverse-9644def211c5">Brave’s Athletaverse</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">Brave Virtual Worlds</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brave’s Athletaverse

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*QAKiS4VAADWnF9XBavUwKw.jpeg"></figure><h3>Valor’s Beginning</h3>
At the start of Brave, our founders had a vision: they wanted Brave to be big to eventually create real change and make an impact wherever the company took them. Throughout their company journey, their vision has largely stayed the same, however the steps to achieve it have changed. Along the way, conversations with potential customers, market research, and advice from mentors shaped Brave’s grand vision and product. All of these factors have led them to their product now: Valor.
<h3>Valor’s History</h3>
Valor is the product of years of planning, design, and hard work. Here is its history for you to better understand the product itself, but also how it came to be what it is today.
First, in creating Valor, our team had to develop the electronics: they bought off-the-shelf parts to get an idea of the product, then they used 3D printers to print out parts of the suit.
“3D printers allowed us to be creative with our design — we were not limited in any way,” said William Kodama, Brave’s CEO, in an interview.
Their design, however, took time to perfect. Dhyey Parikh, Brave’s COO, designed countless iterations of the module before arriving to the Valor of today.
“We have over a thousand of iterations of just the exoskeleton — we paid attention to how it fits on your body and what everything would look like,” said Dhyey.
The actual motion capture began from the development of the exoskeleton. The team worked with CAD software for 3D printing to create models where the motion capture sensor would be held by the electronics. The process for the motion capture was similar to the exosuit: Dhyey made many iterations, the team conducted tests, and sometimes, prints failed. However, 3D printing was a great process for prototyping and development — the team frequently utilized the 3D printers in the libraries at the University of Virginia to aid their development process of the suit.
The fabrics and outer casing of the product came last in the design process. At first, the team was unsure of what the outside of Valor would look like. Fabrics are an integral part of the product and Brave’s team eventually landed on high-quality yet comfortable medical-grade Velcro to complete the physical product. The process to finalize a material was a journey of its own through constantly engaging with mentors that had experience in manufacturing to perusing the material aisles at JoAnn’s Fabrics &amp; Crafts.
<h3>Valor’s Future</h3>
In the future, our team wants to reimagine motion capture — one form of Valor will be smart clothing with sensors embedded in day-to-day clothing. Read our blog about the transformative effects of smart clothing <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/our-vision-57c4517db132">here</a>.
Brave also sees a future with extended reality for athletes to enjoy a virtual world for all of their training needs. Read our blog about Valor and extended reality <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/valors-future-with-extended-reality-93ac281a5967">here</a> to learn more about the qualities of an immersive, virtual experience for athletes.
At the end of our interview, William said, “we want to improve people’s lives; we want to improve humanity as a whole. Of course, we would like to give back to our employees, thank our mentors who have helped us along the way, and give back to the partners who have devoted time to helping us develop a product.”
Valor’s future is rich with the potential to capture brave new worlds. Brave’s mission will guide the team far and wide in search of these new worlds and they will touch the lives of many with their product, Valor.
<h3>Learn more about Brave</h3>
Read our other blogs <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">here</a>.
Visit our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/">website</a>.
Join our <a href="https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16075ccceef95e48c79ac3fed&amp;id=19b7e224c2">email list</a>.
Watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__ESWAc4yw&amp;t=2s">demo video</a>.
Try our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">product</a>.
Interested investors, reach out to our CEO William Kodama: wskodama@bravevirtual.com
Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=4557f7155c5a" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/about-valor-4557f7155c5a">About Valor</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">Brave Virtual Worlds</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

About Valor

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Zl681LjM9lOmQ3-lGkXKWg.jpeg"></figure><h3>About the Beginning of Brave</h3>
The idea for Brave came about when two engineering students, William Kodama and Dhyey Parikh, our current CEO and COO respectively, completed a semester-long project for a class their first year at the University of Virginia in 2017. That semester-long project evolved and thrived in the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/i-corps/">NSF Innovation Corps</a> program in the summer of 2018, and slowly turned into a passion for both of them. Evan Magnusson, our current CTO and CFO, then turned the duo into a trio when he joined the team to assist with Unity and VR development. Their project grew even further at the <a href="https://www.darden.virginia.edu/batten-institute/ventures/ilab">Darden iLab incubator</a>, at which point the team recognized Brave’s potential for real change and impact on people.
<h3>About our Founders</h3>
William, Dhyey, and Evan are driven, have a collaborative spirit, and work hard to actualize their vision. Since meeting in various classes at UVa, the three have worked together to develop the best possible product.
The team has a simple philosophy: they listen to people’s problems and work to solve them. Throughout college, the three spent a lot of their time on calls to meet as many people as possible to gauge their questions and concerns. The three conducted these phone call interviews and product development from their shared attic space when they were in another important phase of Brave, the <a href="https://economicdevelopment.virginia.edu/catalyst-accelerator">Charlottesville Catalyst accelerator</a>.
“We spent time listening to potential customers across gaming, virtual reality, military, health care, physical therapy, and sports,” said William Kodama.
Brave’s founders want to ensure the production of a consumer-oriented and consumer-inspired product for anyone’s use. Their company culture makes sure of this.
<h3>The Impact of COVID-19</h3>
As they entered their final year of college, the meetings and market research continued. The COVID-19 pandemic also entered their world. When asked about the impact of the pandemic on their progress, William answered straight away:
“COVID sealed the deal for entrepreneurship for us because all of our classes were remote so we had a lot of time on our hands to work together.”
However, the pandemic offered a bit of a challenge as well. The team wasn’t able to meet with customers or build partnerships as easily as they would have liked. Although they had added time to meet with partners, the nature of those meetings had changed — everything was being conducted remotely and now, meetings had to be scheduled well in advance. During this time, they also encountered a problem with their exoskeleton development. However, they found a way to pivot their efforts to address and avoid the inadequacies of the exoskeleton and gaming markets.
Combining all of their notes from their past customer discovery and carefully reading over them, the team arrived at a new early-stage solution: wearable motion capture.
Through all of their trials and setbacks, the Brave team pushed forward each time with the power of teamwork. The UVa environment was a great place which fostered a supportive, collaborative space for William, Dhyey, and Evan to comfortably share their ideas and work on their project.
“From the professors, students, and alumni — everyone is invested in making entrepreneurship really strong at UVa,” said Evan.
Receiving constructive feedback from <a href="https://www.darden.virginia.edu/faculty-research/directory/damon-devito">Damon DeVito</a>, their past professor and current mentor, or reviewing business principles with Professor <a href="https://www.commerce.virginia.edu/faculty/cwr5s">Chip Ransler</a> from McIntire’s School of Commerce, the three founders have always pursued collaborative relationships to help their project grow.
<h3>Brave Today</h3>
Brave is a product of collaboration, grit, and passion: three traits which are reflected in its product. Our founders created Valor with the intention to provide the best, most adaptable wearable motion capture. They can not wait to extend Valor to the Athletaverse and watch their venture, which started as an idea for a class, grow into life-changing technology.
<h3>Learn more about Brave</h3>
Read our other blogs <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">here</a>.
Visit our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/">website</a>.
Join our <a href="https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16075ccceef95e48c79ac3fed&amp;id=19b7e224c2">email list</a>.
Watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__ESWAc4yw&amp;t=2s">demo video</a>.
Try our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">product</a>.
Interested investors, reach out to our CEO William Kodama: wskodama@bravevirtual.com
Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=7d2888057a61" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/our-founders-7d2888057a61">Our Founders</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">Brave Virtual Worlds</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Our Founders

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Bg-pAj40Vl3fo6qAtWgVqg.jpeg"></figure>Extended reality paired with Brave’s Valor suit and platform reimagines and vastly improves sports training, physical therapy, and everything that relies on understanding human interaction. In this blog, we will discuss Valor’s current features, its ability to incorporate XR applications into its platform, and the possibilities that can arise from their union.
<h3>Valor, Currently</h3>
Right now, Valor consists of 10 sensors paired with software that breaks down human motion into comprehensive reports, replays, and numbers. These features give objective measures to any movement whether in the context of health, entertainment, or sports. If you haven’t already, read our story about Valor’s current way to help sports players improve their performance <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/braves-motion-capture-now-7e46f20f6909">here</a>.
The main visualization and replay component of Brave runs on Unity, a cross-platform game engine that supports native mobile, web, and extended reality (XR) applications. Right now, Valor integrates seamlessly with mobile phones, meaning that data collected by the sensors show up on the Brave app. By the end of this year, we look forward to connecting Valor with AR glasses and later, VR headsets, to enhance the user experience by offering a virtual world to house all of their movement.
<h3>Valor, Coming Soon</h3>
VR and AR add another dimension to motion capture-powered performance improvement: with a VR headset or AR glasses, athletes can view anything they desire in front of them. Golfers can see their club at their side and their previous swing replaying in front of them; basketball players can see the trajectory of their 3-point shot along with their arm and body movement to achieve that shot. Baseball players can replay the swing of their bat in front of them and move their arms alongside the swing for increased practice and muscle memory. Valor combined with XR grants every athlete the chance to change their idea of the way they interact with a virtual world.
Unity, the game engine which currently supports Valor, provides the tools necessary to create virtual and augmented reality experiences. A VR world in Unity creates an entirely computer-generated environment for athletes to practice in. This possibility leads to new, exciting experiences for users, especially as AR glasses and VR headsets become sleeker and more lightweight.
AR is a practical, easier alternative to VR. Without the need for cameras or an entire virtual world, the user in AR gets to experience elements of their real-life alongside added computer-generated information. Their enhanced perception of reality supports an athlete’s training by displaying their swing or throw in front of themselves so that they can easily trace their previous, practiced movements. The technology will also offer corrections to the athlete in their field of vision so that they can practice new and improved ranges of motion for their swing, hit, or throw. In this way, an athlete’s performance will become significantly better over a shorter period of time.
<h3>Closing</h3>
Valor sees a future home in the brave virtual world of extended reality. As athletes become comfortable using our technology, we hope to introduce them to the Athletaverse as well: a virtual world in which athletes can coexist, compare, and compete.
However before we reach such a world, we recognize that extended reality alone opens up a sea of potential for athletes trying to improve their game; a world Brave works to harness right now. By offering an immersive, corrective experience for athletes, XR is the best way to achieve real results for all athletes looking to improve their performance.
<h3>Learn more about Brave</h3>
Read our other blogs <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">here</a>.
Visit our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/">website</a>.
Join our <a href="https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16075ccceef95e48c79ac3fed&amp;id=ed2f9f3344">email list</a>.
Watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__ESWAc4yw&amp;t=2s">demo video</a>.
Try our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">product</a>.
Interested investors, reach out to our CEO William Kodama: wskodama@bravevirtual.com
Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=93ac281a5967" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/valors-future-with-extended-reality-93ac281a5967">Brave’s Valor Suit and Platform — Future with Extended Reality</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">Brave Virtual Worlds</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brave’s Valor Suit and Platform — Future with Extended Reality

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*WVlPnAruF90deDZsyipIAw.jpeg"></figure>In the future, we imagine a world where Brave’s human movement platform can be used by anyone, anywhere. If you haven’t read our blog about our company vision, read it <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/our-vision-57c4517db132">here</a>.
But what about Brave’s current Valor technology? It consists of 10 sensors that all work together to capture the body’s motion. It is paired with software that provides comprehensible reports on the movement of different body parts as well as raw data that displays all the components of pure motion. Athletes competing in all sports use Valor to better their performance. In particular, football quarterbacks can use our technology to perfect their throwing skill and accuracy. Here is a story of a football quarterback who uses motion capture to find the most efficient throwing motion for him.
<h3>Liam’s story</h3>
Imagine a high school football player named Liam. He’s his school’s starting quarterback but he hasn’t been throwing as well as he had anticipated this season. His completion percentage is only 53% and he knows that his team will not be able to make it to the playoffs if he keeps throwing this way.
After practice one day, his coach pulls him aside and asks if he would like to try something different to help improve his throw. Liam agrees, hopeful for any improvement in his performance. His coach introduces him to Valor: motion capture used to pinpoint inefficiencies in throwing form and then work to alter it. Although a bit hesitant to turn to science for answers, Liam reads the testimonies of many other athletes who used Brave’s Valor to drastically improve their performance and decides to try it.
The next day, he and his coach meet at their training center, where Liam puts on the Valor sensors all over his body and throws a few footballs to several desired targets. The sensors immediately pick up on the fact that Liam is throwing shoulder-first instead of leading with his hips to throw the football. His coach relays this information to him as he watches his player’s movement on the Valor software.
“You should begin rotating your pelvis, then your torso, and finally your shoulder to properly throw a football,” he says.
On the screen, it shows that Liam tends to throw the ball with only his shoulder. The Valor report tells him that if he can find a way to engage his hips, he will see better results on the field.
For the next month, Liam focuses solely on rotating his hips as he throws the football. Whether it be a gentle pass or a 40-yard throw, he notices that hip rotation has a big role to play in controlling the velocity of a throw. In his games, his teammates start to receive a greater amount of his passes. Now, his completion percentage has grown to 60%. For the rest of the season, Liam keeps on improving his throw and takes his team all the way to the playoffs. He also begins to receive college recruiting offers from several universities across the country.
All thanks to Brave’s Valor.
<h3>Brave’s role</h3>
Liam’s story is not unique. Many professional athletes have turned to motion capture to improve their athletic performance. Learning from empirical motion data has opened up miles of potential growth for athletes in any sport.
Brave is making this technology, through Valor, available and accessible to all. We believe that understanding human movement can lead to endless new possibilities. As a coach’s best friend, motion capture brings together coaches and athletes, acting as a resource for both.
<h3>Learn more about Brave</h3>
Read our other blogs <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">here</a>.
Visit our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/">website</a>.
Join our <a href="https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16075ccceef95e48c79ac3fed&amp;id=ed2f9f3344">email list</a>.
Watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__ESWAc4yw&amp;t=2s">demo video</a>.
Try our <a href="https://www.bravevirtualworlds.com/contact">product</a>.
Interested investors, reach out to our CEO William Kodama: wskodama@bravevirtual.com
Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=7e46f20f6909" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds/braves-motion-capture-now-7e46f20f6909">Brave’s Motion Capture Now</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/brave-virtual-worlds">Brave Virtual Worlds</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.