New Exhibitor Q&A Spotlights

What makes your company and/or products and services unique for the HPE field?

We are the only company to offer a complete, comprehensive parkour program that includes curriculum, equipment, and training / professional development. We are the only parkour program running in public schools taught by Physical Education teachers.

Please share a little about what drew you to create products or services that support HPE.

We believe in the whole person experience. Life itself should be a joyful exploration of our mental, physical, and emotional capabilities. Parkour is unique in how it affects all aspects through a movement-based discipline.

What will attendees experience when they attend your Exhibitor Demo during #SHAPECleveland?

We are helping to support the "¿Por Que Parkour?" Presentation given by Miriam Kenyon and Stacy Pough of District of Columbia Public School. DCPS has a robust parkour program (which we co-founded) that has been running for over 5 years and is delivered to every 7th-grade Physical Education cohort. This session will be an active introduction to Parkour Fundamentals that you can use in your classes.

For those that may not be familiar with your company, please tell us a little about your products and services.

We started BucketGolf in 2016 as a homemade set from 6 stores to help spice up our summer vacations. After every person who played kept asking us to make them sets we thought it was time to create a real version for everyone to enjoy.

Scratch golfer, weekend hack, never played before it doesn't matter this game was built for everyone.

Friends and family gatherings will never be the same once you get your hands on a BucketGolf set.

Please share with prospective and registered attendees why your company is participating in the 2024 SHAPE American National Convention & Expo.

We've recently partnered with a few schools and golf courses to get Golf/BucketGolf into the hands of children who may not have the opportunity to play. We would love to give a cheaper/fun alternative to get golf into school curriculums as we've noticed it’s a market that has not been fully explored.

Will your company be offering any special offers or deals to #SHAPECleveland attendees? If so, please describe those offers.

Yes! 10% off for buyers at the SHAPE America National Convention & Expo.

For those that may not be familiar with your company, please tell us a little about your products and services.

The Dink Buddy nets simply and easily pop-up and collapse making them perfect for students of all ages. They come in 6-ft (The Original), 11-ft (The XL) and 4-ft (The Budding Pro) lengths and are intended for all levels of play. Expanded, all Dink Buddy sizes are sturdy, weather-resistant and tightly designed by engineers for durability and safety. The Original and XL nets offer a regulation height net (34-36”) while the Budding Pro offers a slightly shorter height (26”) for the little guys. The Collapsible Frame Technology is the core to our product line lending itself to easy, intuitive and quick assembly and disassembly. The Dink Buddy consists of a fully connected bottom subassembly and top subassembly. These subassemblies are attached with elastic cords that run through adjacent high-grade aluminum tubes. The elastic cords not only hold adjacent elements together but pull them together. In addition, these nets have built in gizmos (i.e. Court Expander Technology) enabling adjacent nets to easily join together to double the court in seconds.

Dink Buddy enthusiastically continues to develop products including a novel teaching/training paddle and sound reducing balls. Dink Buddy welcomes all to try our current and future offerings!

How many years has your company been in business and what inspired you to work within health and physical education.

Dink Buddy is a NJ-based company founded in April 2023. The original motivation for the development of the Dink Buddy was the obvious shortage of pickleball court time especially at peak hours. At the start, Dink Buddy set out to establish user needs to develop a highly novel pickleball net including (a) portability (fits in a backpack; (b) easy set-up (intuitive and quick); and (c) sturdiness and durability. The very first prototype went to a pickleball friend of Dink Buddy founder Janet Galtes. This friend was a teacher - she used this prototype in her classroom and loved it! From thereon, Dink Buddy kept an eye on best practices for a Phys Ed class in its user needs assessments. This lens ultimately led to the addition of the Court Expander Technology built into every net. With this simple but powerful innovation, two nets can become one longer net or remain as two nets, and therefore, two separate playing pods. The concept of teaching/training pods further guided development to unique court layouts and tools to create novel courts on-the-fly.

Please share a little about what drew you to create products or services that support health and physical education.

Pickleball is an exciting and rapidly growing sport that captures the hearts of kids. The Dink Buddy offers a user-friendly net that is easy to set-up, take down and store, ensuring endless fun for students K thru 12. The obvious benefits include engagement, exercise and fitness through a sport that may be newer to many schools and/or students. It offers a wonderful outlet and learning opportunity – pickleball is a game of strategy and all levels can learn new things.

Games whether on full courts (i.e. with The Extended XL) or Dink Buddy pods (i.e. with The Original, The XL, The Buddy Pro) can be very accommodating to different talent and experience levels. There will be many ways to conduct a PE class. In one scenario, multiple two- or four-student courts can be set up and run on a ladder system. This allows the students to ultimately play with students of similar levels, but all students can move up as they improve relative to others. This could prove less intimidating and therefore more enjoyable for most students.

Numerous court configurations will be offered by Dink Buddy through the SNAK PAK and online tips and tricks. These courts can enable variety in teaching/playing and further offers the students to improve different areas of their game while just having time. PE classes will whiz by even for the typically less engaged students. One popular and easy court configuration is our ‘ol favorite Four-Squares. Though the game itself is not unique to Dink Buddy, the court configuration is. Four Dink Buddy Originals (6-ft) form a “+” and off you go. By the way, did anyone know that there is a “The Four-Square World Championships” that takes place in Bridgton, Maine each year?  Crazy, but also so fun!

For those that may not be familiar with your company, please tell us a little about your products and services.

PaddleSmash is a new outdoor game that combines the best elements of Pickleball and Roundnet (aka Spikeball) into a fun and easy-to-learn game. It's a perfect way to develop paddle skills without needing a pickleball court.

What makes your company and/or products and services unique for the HPE field?

We're like Spikeball but MUCH EASIER making it a great option for PE classes where you have a wide variety of skillsets.

Is there a company milestone of which you are most proud?

We were featured on Shark Tank back in October and made a deal with two of the sharks!

For those that may not be familiar with your company, please tell us a little about your products and services.

Premier Spike revolutionizes physical activity by providing the highest quality roundnet equipment, designed for players of all ages and skill levels. Roundnet, which you may know as spikeball, is a game that encourages creativity, teamwork, and competition on any surface. Premier Spike is perfect for educational, recreational, or competitive settings, promoting skill development and healthy competition in an accessible format.

What makes your company and/or products and services unique for the HPE field?

Premier Spike stands out in the HPE field for its inclusivity, adaptability, and focus on fostering a love for physical activity. Our game welcomes all skill levels, ensuring everyone can participate. Premier Spike's versatility makes it suitable for any environment, offering a unique blend of physical and cognitive benefits. It's an engaging way to encourage active learning, strategic thinking, and fun in physical education.

Please share with prospective and registered attendees why your company is participating in the 2024 SHAPE American National Convention & Expo.

We're excited to join SHAPE America to showcase Premier Spike as an innovative tool for physical education. Our aim is to equip educators with a game that enriches their curriculum, engages students, and underscores the importance of health and wellness. We've seen many challenges teachers face with the quality of other roundnet sets, and our equipment is built to last for years, even with the most rambunctious of students jumping and falling on them. We look forward to demonstrating Premier Spike's versatility and its potential to invigorate physical education programs.

For those that may not be familiar with your company, please tell us a little about your products and services.

Welcome to Wellness Wally Co.'s mission is simple yet profound: to nurture the holistic well-being of children. Through engaging and explorative activities, we foster physical and mental health while igniting a curiosity for diverse cultures. At Wellness Wally Co., we believe in learning through enjoyment, exploration, and instruction.

The Wellness Wally Around the World Health Education Program is an engaging health education program designed specifically for elementary-aged children. The program aims to teach children about various aspects of wellness, including physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being, through a fun and interactive journey around the world. It serves as a primary prevention strategy, utilizing diverse educational methods such as storytelling, hands-on activities, and goal-setting with tracking. At its core is the "Wellness Wally Around the World" book series, with each book spotlighting one of the six wellness dimensions - physical, emotional, social, intellectual, environmental, and spiritual.

Our host city is home to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Drawing on that inspiration, if your company was a song, what would it be and why?

If my company was a song, it would be the song "We Are the World," which was a charity single sang by several top superstars in the 1980s! The message in this song reflects the mission of the company, both from a beneficial perspective of promoting health, wellness and happiness, as well as from a cultural awareness perspective that brings humanity together.

Please share a little about what drew you to create products or services that support health and physical education.

My first experience as a health educator and promoter was when I was 9 years old. It was around this age that we started learning about health in school. My dad, who spent many years living in Europe, was a smoker at this time. After learning about how smoking could lead to death, I began to be fearful about losing my dad! I would go home crying and begging him to stop smoking, and every time I saw him pull out a cigarette, I would yell at him. Eventually, he had enough and he has been smoke-free since!

That was over 22 years ago and I still am as passionate about promoting health and wellness. When I was an undergraduate at Ohio University, I majored in Health Services Administration and have spent the rest of my academic and professional career working in various sectors of the health field, including health education. I also love to be creative and think outside the box. I always said that I wanted to create something to change the world!

These traits combined, as well as lock-down boredom during COVID, inspired my book series - Wellness Wally Around the World, which was the backbone of my health education research project for my PhD dissertation. Utilizing the books, I created the Wellness Wally Around the World Health Education program.

Come visit me at Booth 200 to learn more about my background and the company!

For those that may not be familiar with your company, please tell us a little about your products and services.

WIN WIN Athletics is a sports company built for everyday athletes. Our innovative and iconic gear makes playing sports simple. In spring 2024 we are launching our first product, a flag football kit that makes it easier to set up and play a game of flag football.

The kit itself is like a football field that you can carry. Our patented cones nest together to create an iconic football shape that is easy to carry and doubles as storage for our "belt-less" Snap Flags. Our patented Snap Flags attach directly to a player's waistband. They are easy to put on, consistent to pull off and completely tamper proof.

We are in the final stages of manufacturing and will be taking pre-orders for our flag football kits at the Shape America show. Come by Booth 800 and try to pull our flags ;)

What makes your company and/or products and services unique for the HPE field?

There are a lot of brands that help us run faster and jump higher, but most of us just want to play better. WIN WIN Athletics is built to solve everyday sports problems for everyday athletes. We make it easier to play the sports we all love whether its in a backyard, a school yard, a gymnasium or in a big game. Our products are unique because they are build to perform on the field and also fit into your life. Thats what we call a win win.

Please share with prospective and registered attendees why your company is participating in the 2024 SHAPE American National Convention & Expo.

For the last 16 months, we have been designing, prototyping and testing our flag football products with athletes, coaches and educators of all ages and skill levels; from youth leagues to NFL players.

Along the way some of our best feedback and insight came from physical education teachers. We realized that beyond helping athletes play better, we could design products that helped coaches and instructors spend more time teaching proper flag football techniques and less time fumbling with flags or carrying around a mess of cones.

We're excited to participate in Shape America because our friends in the classroom inherently understand the value of our flag football kits. I'll never forget the first time I showed one of our earliest prototypes to my sons' phys ed teacher, Mr. Schultz. He took one look at the kit said: "Holy Cow, that's like a football field that you can carry!" He was right and that line of his stuck!