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 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 & Crafts.

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

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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

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.