iCALM GALAXY

AHA! Tantrum

Big feelings, made playable.

A hands-on play system that makes emotional regulation tangible through play.

Children and families join a rescue mission to help aliens regain their balance through story, making, and calming activities.

Children’s Emotional Learning · Commercial Product

Role: Product Design · Gameplay · Prototyping · Instruction Design · Production

RecognizedFeaturedLoved

Amazon’s Choice badge — **Amazon’s Choice**

CBS 17 and My Carolina logos — **Featured on CBS 17**My Carolina · Back-to-School Fall Trends

Portrait of Drew Barrymore — **Recommended by Drew Barrymore**Named a “2021 Holiday Top Gift”

Sold at eslite bookstores in Taiwan

01DESIGN OPPORTUNITY

Making emotional regulation tangible through play.

The emotional-learning tools I reviewed often focused on identifying feelings. I saw an opportunity to extend that learning into hands-on practice: helping children explore ways to calm down with their families.

Mother and daughter laughing together while playing with the Balancing UFO — Real play. Real connection.

Existing tools

My Feelings board game and components — Emotion board game

Edupress Emotions Flash Cards package and sample cards — Emotion flash cards

iCALM Galaxy game components arranged on a bright green surface

iCALM Galaxy balancing game, pieces, activity cards, and felt character

Complete iCALM Galaxy game system with packaging, storybook, balancing UFO, characters, and play mat

02READ · BUILD · PLAY

READ · BUILD · PLAY

From story to making and shared play—an emotional learning experience for children and families.

READ
Enter the story
Enter the galaxy rescue story and meet the Calming Guardians.
BUILD
Make emotions tangible
Build and personalize the creations that bring the mission to life.
PLAY
Learn through play
Recognize emotions and practice ways back to calm—together.

EXPERIENCE IN ACTION

From Read to Play

Watch how children experience the complete READ · BUILD · PLAY journey.

Two core features bring emotional regulation into play:
the Balancing UFO reveals imbalance;
the Calming Orb supports recovery.

03BALANCING UFO

Make imbalance visible.

The Balancing UFO

As emotion tokens build up, the UFO becomes harder to balance—a physical metaphor for feelings becoming overwhelming.

The wobble brings excitement and frustration into play, creating opportunities to pause and try again.

Complete Balancing UFO with its support, platform, and alien emotion tokens

Two children’s hands placing alien tokens on the Balancing UFO

Game cards and the instruction booklet laid out on a carpet, including the Give 1 Alien and Board 1 Alien cards

A family playing iCalm Galaxy together around a table — “The goal is not to stay balanced forever, but to practice finding a way back.”

Alien tokens accumulate until the UFO loses balance — “The goal is not to stay balanced forever, but to practice finding a way back.”

04CALMING ORB

Make calming tangible.

The Calming Orb

When the UFO loses balance, the Calming Orb creates a moment to pause, practice a calming skill, and try again.

Blowing on the Orb asks children to first take a deep breath. The slow exhale supports the body’s calming response, while Sensi’s face appears as a visual surprise that helps shift attention away from the strong emotion.

When strong feelings arise beyond the game, children can take the Orb to a safe, quiet place and use the same skills independently or together with their families.

A hand holds the Calming Orb while a slow exhale lifts Sensi’s purple fringe — See the Orb in action

Blue Sensi Calming Orb with colorful emotion tokens beside the Balancing UFO

Three Guardians. Three ways to respond.

Children practice nine skills introduced by the three Calming Guardians, representing Mindful Relaxation, Physical Activities, and the Five Senses.

Their signature colors are carried into the Calming Orb, connecting the nine skills introduced in the story with recognizable visual cues children can return to during play.

“Instead of simply telling children to calm down, the Orb gives them a concrete way to begin.”

Zeny, Flexy, and Sensi presented together as the three Calming Guardians

Overlapping round calming skill cards fanned out like a hand of cards

The Hide and See skill card, worth saving 3 aliens

05THE PLAY KIT

Empowered through making.

From player to maker.

AHA! Tantrum begins as a kit. Children build the Balancing UFO and Calming Orb, then personalize the pieces they will use during play.

Making is part of the experience: a chance to explore the materials, get to know the tools, and make them their own before the game begins.

Girl smiling while holding her handmade balancing UFO among the emotion characters

See How It's Made

A child assembling the Balancing UFO among colorful alien emotion tokens — Credit to: @chienchien99
A take-along case for packing up game pieces and bringing calming tools into everyday life.

An open handmade carrying case holding the Calming Orb, cards, and alien tokens — Credit to: @chienchien99
A take-along case for packing up game pieces and bringing calming tools into everyday life.

06BEHIND THE DESIGN

Designing for young hands.

The frustration belongs in the game—not in the assembly.

Playable Balancing UFO prototype and game components arranged together for family testing

A mother and daughter trying the UFO prototype together at a table

A photographer documenting the complete iCalm Galaxy kit during a studio shoot

01Prototype Development

Balancing UFO

The original spaceship was costly, unstable, and difficult for children to assemble, so I simplified it into a more practical UFO.

Pencil sketch of the first spaceship concept with a paper model, ruler, and cutting mat — Initial spaceship sketch

Cardboard spaceship concept prototype being built on a workbench among cut pieces and tools — Cardboard prototype

CNC-cut spaceship shape tested with wooden tokens on a cutting mat — Early mechanism test

I tested balance and form to create a controlled wobble with a simpler structure.

Hand-drawn sketch of the simplified UFO with a cardboard body and balancing stand — Simplified UFO concept

Blue UFO model being tested for balance on a cone-shaped stand — Balance test

Four UFO prototypes in different forms and structures lined up for comparison — Form studies

Hands assembling the dimensional blue UFO structure

Option A

3D FORM

Precise folds and small glue areas made assembly and production more demanding.

Hands folding and joining the simplified die-cut UFO panel

Option B

SIMPLIFIED 2D FORM

SELECTED FOR PRODUCTION

A simpler fold-and-glue structure traded dimensional sidewalls for easier assembly.

Calming Orb

I proposed adding a smile hidden beneath soft yarn tassels to an existing ball from another product, keeping costs down while turning each breath into a playful reveal.

Hands assembling, squeezing, and releasing the soft purple Orb prototype with red yarn tassels — Squeeze and release to practice relaxation.

Blowing the red yarn tassels aside to reveal the Orb prototype’s hidden smiling face — A breath reveals a smile.

The final design became a sew-and-stuff activity combining the three Guardians’ colors and bringing Mindful Relaxation, Physical Activities, and the Five Senses together in one tangible object.

Hands threading yarn through the edge of the circular Orb fabric to stitch the soft form — Stitching the orb.

Hands adding cotton stuffing and gathering the stitched fabric to close the Calming Orb — Stuffing and finishing.

02Play Testing

Testing with children, parents, and friends revealed usability challenges and unexpected ways to play, guiding refinements from prototype to final product.

Refining Through Play

Family Testing

Children and parents gathered around the UFO game during a family playtesting session

A mother and children placing emotion tokens on the balancing UFO — Watching children and parents play, I found that the UFO tipped too easily and some steps required too much adult guidance. I refined the balancing mechanism and assembly to make play smoother for children and less demanding for parents.

Friend Testing

Friends gathered around a table trying the balancing UFO game

Friends adapted the same game to their own social setting, inventing new ways to play beyond its original purpose.

The UFO game set up among drinks during a game night with friends — Even as a drinking game!

Key Insights & Iterations

More Ways to Express Feelings

Paired emotion tokens with white alien tokens that children can define themselves

To accommodate mixed feelings, we added paired emotion tokens and blank white aliens for children to personalize.

Rethinking the Reward System

An early gift shaker revealing illustrated souvenir pieces

Blue Space Station reward box prototype with a Super Powers label

The gift shaker added surprise but disrupted play. Testing and specialist feedback led us to shift the focus from immediate rewards and competition toward intrinsic motivation and collaboration.

Customer Journey Map

Mapping children’s and parents’ actions, emotions, and pain points revealed friction in setup, gameplay, and reward collection.

06-03INSTRUCTION & PRODUCTION

From playroom to market.

Turning a tested play experience into a product families could unpack, build, and play.

The complete iCalm Galaxy kit: open box with storybook, play board, tokens and components, beside the assembled UFO — Complete product setThe story, building components, and play materials brought together in one kit.

Guiding the build.

I created hand-drawn instructions to make the parts and assembly sequence easier to follow, helping families move from loose components to a playable system.

Assembly instructionsHand-drawn parts and steps to guide the build.

Open mission package with the lid, a rescue mission invitation letter, goggles, and colorful game components — Mission packageThe rescue mission carried into the physical kit.

Bringing the mission into the box.

I designed the physical product graphics and worked with the sourcing team and vendors to refine specifications, manufacturability, and production quality.

Behind the scenes of a product photo shoot: a photographer with a camera on a tripod shooting the iCalm Galaxy kit on a white set — Product photographyBehind the scenes of preparing the product for launch.

A plastic stationery fastener adapted to secure the clear UFO dome.

I adapted a standard stationery fastener to replace a sharp, difficult-to-assemble support, making assembly safer and simpler without a custom mold.

Laser-cut materials and offcuts used for early prototyping. — Early prototyping

Factory sample of the kit and its assembly components. — Factory sample

Game components being packaged on a production line. — Production

Quick prototypes evolved into factory samples through material, assembly, and production refinements. Material safety, foreseeable misuse, and testing requirements also informed these decisions.

07IMPACT & REFLECTION

From playroom to market.

AHA! Tantrum grew from a playful concept into a commercial product, earning Amazon’s Choice recognition, media exposure, and a place on eslite’s shelves.

AHA! Tantrum and other game boxes displayed on a wooden table in an eslite bookstore — eslite

Drew Barrymore speaking to the camera in a video segment — Drew Barrymore

Two women presenting a table of products in a CBS 17 My Carolina segment — CBS 17 · My Carolina

Amazon’s Choice badge above the AHA! Tantrum box, play board, and tokens

What families say.

Five-star feedback from families.

Families shared how they enjoyed the story, hands-on play, and calming techniques in everyday life. Here are a few of their Amazon reviews.

A smiling boy in a red shirt placing a token on the AHA! Tantrum Balancing UFO at a wooden table — “I love that we can use the calming techniques in our everyday lives and it seems to help.”
Amazon Customer · Amazon review

Amazon customer reviews

1 / 5

Smart Shopper
Amazing product!
July 22, 2022
Verified Purchase
Fascinating innovative product! Very creative and user friendly. My daughter is 4 and is still able to follow the game and understand all the various characters etc. Excellent tool for teaching about tantrums! Will definitely look into the other boxes from this line.
Amazon Customer
Great Product
December 30, 2022
Verified Purchase
I bought this game for my 4 year old son and he hasn’t stopped talking about it. He loved the story book and building the mothership. I love that we can use the calming techniques in our everyday lives and it seems to help. We also got him the Skin one which is maybe even cooler because of the keychain concept.
There were a couple of typos but nothing that we couldn’t figure out. All in all we love these boxes and plan to continue buying them.
Hannah Williamson
Absolutely adorable and great for development
November 13, 2021
Verified Purchase
It is very creative and a great tool to help build positive social emotional health.
HH
The kids love these cute aliens:)
October 23, 2021
The kids had a lot of fun learning and playing the game:)
Norne
One of the most important STEAM projects for kids out there!
October 15, 2021
I cannot say enough good things about this product.
First off, the overall concept and design of the game itself is amazing. It incorporates learning and fun into one product that focuses on social and emotional development, an overlooked aspect of childhood developmental care.
Secondly, the game components and pieces themselves are very high quality, feeling ergonomically satisfying to play with.
Lastly, the bonuses provided in the form of videos and online learning is very much appreciated. These are add-ons that go beyond the scope of the game itself, making the overall product very impressive.

07-02MY ROLE & REFLECTION

From concept to a playable product.

I led the physical play experience from gameplay and prototyping through family testing and production refinement—connecting the balancing mechanism, assembly, and instructions into one coherent experience.

Two women talking at a table in a bright office, one holding a cup and the other with a laptop

A group of team members in matching navy shirts posing together with cardboard craft pieces and a blue balloon

Keep the challenge in the play.

Working with child-development specialists and testing with families helped me reconsider what to develop, change, or leave out. The UFO’s instability created the challenge, while difficult assembly interrupted participation; I refined both so children could spend more time experimenting and playing together.

A large group of adults and children posing together indoors, many holding cardboard craft pieces, with a blue balloon

Good emotional play does not remove frustration. It makes recovery possible.