TOYMAKER TEAM

Hey, I’m Joel Pinkham, the Master Toymaker and founder of Ants on a Melon, or AOAM for short. I started the company back in 2012 here in Springfield, Oregon, with the goal of creating light toys that would spark creativity and connection for performers, flow artists, light painters, and dreamers all over the world.

Joel Pinkham

Master Toy Maker

One light. Everything it powers.

Ants on a Melon has spent 14+ years building light tools for two crowds who almost never talk to each other: flow artists who dance with light, and light painters who photograph it. Somewhere along the way we noticed both crowds had the same problem. Every prop wanted to be its own gadget, with its own battery, its own charger, its own controls to relearn, and its own price tag to justify.

So we built the whole catalog around one light instead. The RGB Critter BT is a programmable light that twists into everything we make: fiber optic whips, sabers, staffs, light painting blades, ambient tools, and 200+ twist-on accessories. Buy the light once. After that you are just collecting tools.

If you perform

Your whip tonight is your saber next weekend. Spare 18650 batteries ride in your pocket and swap in seconds, so a dead battery never ends your night. And when fibers wear out (they are the part that hits the ground a thousand times a night), you replace a head for around $30 instead of replacing the whip.

If you shoot

One light means one set of controls across every tool in your bag. Dial in a color from 16.7 million, set one of 100 brightness levels, save it as a preset on the light itself, and get the same output frame after frame, shoot after shoot. Photofocus rates the Critter BT 5/5, Editor’s Choice.

Designed in Oregon

Every product is designed in Oregon, USA, backed by a 2-year warranty on the light and real humans on support. One light. Everything it powers.

These days, it’s still a small, hands-on team. My friend Toymaker Chris has been working with me since 2022. He and I handle the day-to-day, answering emails, packing orders, and keeping everything running smoothly. Together, we also design all of our products, the website, and our mobile apps. Once we finalize a design, I work closely with our global network of contract engineers, from places like Kathmandu and Indonesia, to bring each product to life.

We’re also lucky to have Maia on the team. She’s our Community Outreach Manager and Content Creator, and she’s been working with me since 2017. Maia manages our social media, connects with the flow arts and festival community, and helps create content and demo videos. She’s also a super talented costume designer and performer, and a huge part of what makes AOAM shine creatively.

AOAM is what you'd call a “virtual business.” Most of our collaboration happens remotely, but the passion and care behind what we do is as real as it gets.

- joel pinkham, master toy maker

Chris (left) and Joel (right) standing in front of the original whiteboard sketches for the Ants on a Melon app design.

THE POWER OF STAYING SMALL

To be honest, I used to think having such a small team might be a limitation. It sometimes felt like we had to work extra hard to keep up with bigger companies. But over time, I’ve come to see the value in it. Being small means we stay closely connected to our community. We can respond personally, focus on the details, and make sure everything we send out reflects the creativity and care that inspired AOAM in the first place.

We don’t have outside investors, which allows us to grow at our own pace and make decisions that feel right for the company and our community. We focus on quality, creativity, and staying true to our vision, rather than chasing fast growth. For us, staying small and intentional helps us keep the process fun, flexible, and full of meaning.

Joel (left), friend Dave (center), and brother Ben (right) vending at Oregon Country Fair.

OUR TEAM

JOEL PINKHAM

Master Toy Maker

I lived the early years of my life in Michigan and Wisconsin. One of four boys, I was always entertained playing basketball or tending to livestock on our 40-acre hobby farm. Some of my fondest memories were with my scientist/inventor father. He taught us how to take apart washing machines and computers and build soap box derby cars and model rockets. In me, he instilled a yearning desire to create and explore. I now live in the foothills of the Cascade Mountain Range near Eugene, Oregon, with my Saint Bernard, Rukus. I enjoy going to music festivals, playing basketball, practicing yoga, building (anything), and exploring Oregon's vast natural beauties.

Chris Rey Gonzalez

Designer / Toy Maker

I was born and raised in rural Spain, where I spent most of my childhood enjoying the sunny weather and biking and exploring the countryside. From very early on, I was a curious and creative soul, and I used art as a vehicle to explore and understand the world around me. What art has taught me in a practical way is patience and how to look at things from different perspectives. That might be why I feel like such a good fit at AOAM since I am encouraged to put those skills to use and learn new ways to keep expanding my creativity. I'm looking forward to continuing to grow here so I can keep making fresh and cool toys!

MAIA FRIEDLANDER

MEDIA + COMMUNITY OUTREACH

I grew up under the starlight of rural Ontario, Canada, before moving to the big city: Toronto. I studied Visual Arts and Illustration at Sheridan College with the ultimate objective of apprenticeship in tattooing. Unfortunately, I sustained a serious neck injury that forced me to change my entire direction but found myself once again in the creative world of design, making custom props for theatre and film.

While struggling with my injury, I discovered dancing with a fiber optic whip called the Orbit BitWhip and immediately incorporated it as part of my healing and physiotherapy. Not long after that, I had the opportunity to extol my passion for AOAM more prominently when Joel Pinkham and I connected. Ultimately, I became the AOAM communications and media manager, connecting AOAM to the broadest ranges of the flow arts community.

When not chatting with all of you creative souls through our online platforms, I’m off traveling and engaging in all sorts of LED and fire performances. Or you can also find me hidden in my laboratory, making new LED costume designs to incorporate the latest and greatest AOAM products.

WINNIE ZHANG

Designer / Toy Maker

I grew up in Harbin, China, which everyone calls the Ice City. It looks the part: Russian Revival and Stalinist buildings, and a winter that sits around -20°F for five or six months a year. That builds character. I studied architecture, then worked in architecture design, construction and teaching, plus a few random jobs along the way, before I found AOAM (on Indeed, of all places).

Here I'm hands-on with almost everything we make: building RGB Critter flashlights from start to finish, making sabers, running the laser, making parts, packaging products and packing orders. Packing orders is a funny thing to call a favorite, but honestly I enjoy everything I do here.

On my own time I'm building my portfolio site and writing interactive stories. Outside of work you'll find me playing piano, walking the beach, hunting for new hot springs, reading, or at a concert. One fun fact about me? Nihilism.

THE STORY BEHIND AOAM

AOAM really started as a way for me to express myself and connect with people at music festivals. After I graduated college in 2009 with a degree in Journalism - Documentary Film, I felt this strong urge to explore the world and push the boundaries of my personal growth. That curiosity led me into the jam band and electronic music festival scenes, and those experiences completely changed how I viewed the world and my relationship to it.

Joel Pinkham

Master Toy Maker

Late at night at festivals, I always found myself drawn to light toys and interactive installations. I started bringing light toys and lasers with me to festivals to engage and interact during those late hours. I’ve often had a hard time communicating through words, so discovering light as a medium gave me a new way to connect with people, without needing to say anything at all.

From there, I kept experimenting, building light toys, sharing them with people, and watching how those glowing moments sparked real connection. That curiosity and creativity kept growing until one day, it led to something totally new.

Master Toymaker Joel holding the first version of the Simrat Fiber Optic Umbrella at What The Festival, 2010.

THE BIRTH OF SIMRAT THE UMBRELLA

The inspiration to start Ants on a Melon really began after I made my first fiber optic jellyfish, which I named Simrat, after my Kundalini Yoga teacher.

In the summer of 2010, I was back home in Oregon, sitting in my living room when I looked up at a rainbow-colored umbrella I had hanging from the ceiling, with beads draped over it. That’s when the idea hit me: what if I strung fiber optics from the umbrella and lit it up with color-changing lights?

At the time, I had just discovered the amazing effect of end-glow fiber optics when connected to an RGB LED light source. I took down the umbrella, wove fiber optics into the bottom, and lit it up, and just like that, Simrat the Umbrella was born.

Walking around the festival late at night with this glowing jellyfish above me was pure magic.

- joel pinkham, master toy maker

The first time I brought Simrat out was at STS9’s Regeneration Festival at Horning’s Hideout near Portland. Walking around the festival late at night with this glowing jellyfish above me was pure magic. People kept coming up underneath it, laughing, smiling, soaking in the experience. It was such a beautiful way to connect.

I brought Simrat to a few more festivals that summer, and the last one I hit was Shambhala in Canada. After flowing with Simrat all week, my friends, seeing how much people loved it, started encouraging me to turn this into something more. That’s when the idea for AOAM really took root.

There are way too many Simrat stories to share, but one of my favorites was when we brought a whole bloom of fiber optic jellyfish to Chela Mela Meadow at Oregon Country Fair. Shout out to anyone who was there and got to be part of that glowing swarm.

fiber optic jellyfish

oregon country fair 2013

fiber optic jellyfish

watch video

Master Toymaker Joel holding Simrat and connecting with festival-goers at Shambhala Music Festival, 2010.

The bloom of Simrat the Jellyfish at Kaleidoscope Music Festival, 2013.

The bloom of Simrat the Jellyfish during The String Cheese Incident at Electric Forest Festival, 2013.

THE STORY OF OUR NAME

People sometimes ask me, 'Why the name Ants on a Melon?' It's kind of a strange name, right? But there's actually a story behind it.

Joel Pinkham

Master Toy Maker

In 2010, I was at a music festival near Nelson, British Columbia. I had wandered off to a nearby riverbed and was collecting rocks, just doing my thing. As the clouds started rolling in, I began heading back to my campsite in the Kootenay Mountains. On the way, I ran into this guy named Tyson. We started chatting and taking in the view together, and I handed him one of the rocks I had picked up.

We kept walking, and he ended up dropping the rock, not once, but three times. After the third time, he laughed and said, “Maybe this one wants to stay with you.” Right where the rock had landed, we noticed a watermelon that had been split open on the ground. We crouched down and saw it was covered in these little black ants, just chilling, totally still, sucking up the sweet juice like they were in some kind of trance.

In that moment, with the valley stretching out in front of us and the bass from the festival pulsing in the distance, we both just kind of looked at each other and smiled. And it hit me: all of us dancing and vibing at that festival… we were just like those ants, completely in tune with something sweet, something bigger than us.

We're all just "Ants on a Melon"!

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