I want to buy my son’s whole 5th grade class yoyo’s and an extra string or two for each yoyo. There are approximately 80ish kids in 5th grade. If anyone has ever made an order of this magnitude please point me in the right direction/give me some advice or even a contact so my email actually gets some attention. I have my email ready to fire off to YYE and/or Duncan.
Right now I have a short list of possibilities for yoyo’s I’m open to other suggestions.
Imperial
Butterfly
Proyo
Profly
Unbranded wood yoyo of some sort… not sure where to source this
I’m in the middle of making it official with the Principle to have a short presentation and show them the basics like changing adjusting the string, throwing, sleeper, gravity pull. I think they can grasp the concept of “spaghetti string” and show them how to fix it. That will probaly be about as long as I can hold their attention and have time for. I’m hoping we can just make it part of the 5th grade field day.
From that list, I think Butterfly or Profly are hard to beat. Provides the most options. Modified shape yoyos can be used for some string tricks, too, but they’ll have earlier success with the gaps afforded by the Butterfly/Profly.
I initially thought “Classic” also, but at $10/unit, the price doesn’t scale. Butterflys can be had for less than half that… maybe Duncan will even work out a special volume discount. $800 vs. $320 ($4/unit… could possibly get it for less…) is a lot of cheddar saved.
The target audience is also primarily going to be people who are thrilled to do a gravity pull and maybe a rock the baby some day. The majority will not be kids who want to swap out bearings and start learning 1A unresponsive play. Some might, but then they’ll know who to ask about getting a new yoyo.
The Butterfly Classic is one of the easiest yoyos to get back up to your hand, too. But does have a tendency to stall out pretty quickly during Man-on-the-Flying-Trapeze.
For new players, last thing you want are parts, even if the age is safer to do so with. We’re talking taking an amazing $10 yoyo, adding a $5-6 part, and that scales up poorly for 80 or so kids.
The Butterfly XT would be a good alternative. That’s what I’d recommend.
I’d also say based on scale, the original poster should contact YYF, YYJ and Duncan directly. There’s enough money to be spent that can merit becoming a vendor or perhaps getting some numbers given to him. As far as strings are concerned, just get a 100% poly 100-count(or 2) of YYE string, that will get the job done for the extra strings. If you want to break it up, get 2 colors.
Dang, studio beat me to it. I was going to suggest contacting all three directly, as well as yye. I’ve heard of people working out some kind of discounted price for a bulk purchase from yye. Andre’s a nice guy.
i typically buy yo-yo’s for full classes direct from the manufacturer. i’ve worked with duncan, yoyofactory and yoyojam, and all have been great. i’m a science teacher and buy 60-72 yo-yo’s a year in that way. my favorites are the yyf one and yyj classic so far. i would contact the companies, as they frequently offer a pretty good deal to get a bunch of their yo-yo’s right into the hands of kids who will inevitably want the next model up.
Basically a chance to get a few kids hooked, last summer about a month after I started yoyoing I was starting unresponsive and doing tricks like braintwister and split the atom on the pier in Grand Haven MI, I went to go get a whip so I on walks over concrete I would not have to use my brand new DV888, they where out, then I relieved early that day I had been yoyoing in front of a field trip and those where the cheapest yoyo’s that the store had. I would like to hope that one of those kids kept up with it and continues to throw to this day, but Kids have so much power over there parents spending habits that getting 30 kids yoyo’s could spark a craze through the school, try to get a bearing yoyo, like the classic or the one.
80 students! Thats like $300-1000 based on what you get… you could get nearlt 10 very high end throws witht that… but if ur going to spend it on 800 students, most of which wont get that far anyways, then up to you… from your list, i say butterfly, but if you want to go a bit cheaper, just to let them try out the hobby, you should get a proyo, if they like yoyoing, they can go to toys r us and get a better yoyo later… now, if you want to get them a yoyo that they can use forever, get the ONE, responsive bearing for beginner tricks and unresponsive bearing id they are as passionate as to get tunresponsive play…
