On a windy, mid-April morning, members of the Villanova University baseball team gathered inside Falvey Memorial Library – in a small, first-floor corner space – for batting practice, 2018 style, writes Frank Fitzpatrick for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

There were no real bats or balls. Instead, the players wore virtual-reality headsets and stood in the batter’s box of a 3D ballpark that had been projected onto the library walls.

This virtual batting practice setup is called The Cave, which stands for cave automatic virtual environment. It’s not meant to enhance a hitter’s contact or swing. It was devised to help players develop pitch and location recognition. It’s the creation of Mark Jupina, a baseball-loving assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at Villanova.

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“This has been an intersection of all my different interests and skills,” said Jupina. “I played high school and Legion ball and coached my sons over the years. Here, I worked with (Wildcats coach Kevin Mulvey) to get a better understanding of what he and his players would like to see in terms of training aspects.”

Through the use of sensors, infrared cameras, a projector, software and MLB analytics, Jupina can reproduce any pitch by any big-league pitcher and even augment its speed.

Read more about the Villanova baseball team’s use of virtual reality in The Philadelphia Inquirer by clicking here.

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