Oct 27, 2026Translation missing: en.blog.post.reading_time

Tech Gifts for Teens Who Like to Make Things: 10 Picks for Ages 13 to 16

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About 95% of US teens already have a smartphone and 83% have a game console, so the tech gifts for teens that really stand out now are the ones they can make something with.

This list has 10 of them for ages 13 to 16. We chose them for teens who are into drawing, music, video, code or building, and for each one you’ll see what else you need to buy and a project they could finish in the first week.

We also cover the running costs that tend to surprise parents, like instant film and filament, and when a 3D printer makes more sense than a cheaper kit.

Tech Gifts for Teens at a Glance

Gift	Best for	You’ll also need	Price (approx.)
1. Wacom Intuos Small	Digital drawing	A computer, Chromebook or Android device	$39.95
2. Arturia MiniLab 3	Making music	A computer or iPad	$149
3. GoPro HERO	Filming	A microSD card	$199.99 at launch
4. AOSEED X-MAKER	3D design	Filament and desk space	$359
5. Cricut Joy Xtra	Stickers and custom crafts	Materials and an app account	$179
6. instax mini Evo	Photos	instax mini film, a microSD card	$234.95
7. Makeblock mBot2	Robotics	A computer or tablet	$149.99
8. Arduino Starter Kit R4	Electronics	A computer	$95
9. Raspberry Pi 500 Desktop Kit	Coding	A monitor or TV	$200
10. Makey Makey Classic	Playful inventions	A computer	$51.95

Prices are from each brand’s US store on 24 October 2026 and change often. GoPro’s store didn’t show one that day, so that row uses the launch price.

What Makes a Good Tech Gift for a Teen Who Likes to Make Things

It should give them something to finish. In Common Sense Media’s census of teen media use, making things like art, music, writing or code took up just 3% of teens’ screen time, which leaves a lot of room for a gift that changes the mix.

So we’d look for something that matches what your teen already does without being asked. A kid who fills every notebook margin with sketches will probably use a drawing tablet, and one who makes beats on a phone app will likely get more from a keyboard controller than new earbuds.

It also helps when the gift has room to grow. Most of the picks below work for a beginner on the first evening and still have harder projects waiting a year later, so you aren’t shopping for an upgrade by spring.

10 Best Tech Gifts for Teens Who Love to Create

They’re grouped loosely by what a teen makes with them, from art and music through to robots and code. The ages are the range we’d suggest, and where a brand prints its own age rating, we mention it.

WHY A 3D PRINTER MADE A TECH GIFT LIST FOR TEENS

Most gifts here make something that lives on a screen. A 3D printer turns a teen’s own design into a real part they can measure and redesign if it doesn’t fit. See AOSEED’s 3D printer lineup for young makers.

1. Wacom Intuos Small: For Teens Who Draw

4,096 levels of pen pressure, and the pen never needs charging. That’s the Wacom Intuos Small, a pen tablet that works with a Mac or Windows computer, a Chromebook, or select Android phones and tablets.

There’s no screen on it. Your teen draws on the pad and watches the line show up on the monitor, which feels strange for an evening and then mostly stops feeling strange. One original character, drawn in three different poses, is a good goal for the first week.

Software is part of the deal. Register it on a Mac or PC and Wacom adds two years of Clip Studio Paint Pro, a drawing app built with comics and illustration in mind.

2. Arturia MiniLab 3: For Teens Who Make Music

Plenty of teens already make beats on a phone. The Arturia MiniLab 3 puts those sounds under their fingers, with 25 slim keys, 8 pressure sensitive pads and a set of knobs and faders, and it comes with Ableton Live Lite and Analog Lab Intro to make music in.

No speaker, though. It’s a controller, so it needs a computer or an iPad running music software, and it gets its power through the USB cable.

We’d aim for a 30 second track in the first week. Drums on the pads first, then a short melody over the top once the loop sounds right.

3. GoPro HERO: For Teens Who Film Everything

86 grams. GoPro calls the GoPro HERO its smallest action camera, and it still shoots 4K video and can go 16 feet underwater without a case.

With a mount, it clips onto a helmet, a bike or a skateboard. A one minute video about a hobby, edited in GoPro’s Quik app, is a realistic first week project.

Add a microSD card to the order. It’s also worth a quick talk about who and where it’s okay to film before the camera goes to school.

4. AOSEED X-MAKER: For Teens Who Want to Design Real Objects

Almost everything above makes something that lives on a screen or a sheet of paper. A 3D printer turns a teen’s own design into a part they can hold, and print again if it doesn’t quite fit.

That’s why we’d pick the AOSEED X-MAKER for a teen who’s into design. It’s made for ages 9 to 16 and runs from a touchscreen and a free app, so the step from ready made models to their own designs comes pretty quickly.

Day one could be a name tag from the model library. Then a phone stand, and then the same stand with a steeper angle, printed again to see if it holds a phone better. Longer prints take a few hours, so plan the tests around school.

Printer details are short here on purpose. For the best 3D printer for teens and what to compare between models, see our guide to picking a 3D printer for teens.

5. Cricut Joy Xtra: For Teens Who Love Personalized Crafts

Cricut says the Cricut Joy Xtra isn’t meant for kids 12 and under, which puts it right in this age group. This compact machine cuts vinyl, iron on and card stock up to 8.5 inches wide, from designs made in Cricut’s Design Space app.

Laptop stickers are the usual first project. After that, a lot of teens move on to custom T shirts with iron on vinyl, and with a home inkjet printer it can cut out full color stickers too.

Materials run out and cost extra. Design Space needs an account and an internet connection, and the box includes a free trial of Cricut Access, the paid design library, though uploading their own artwork costs nothing.

6. Fujifilm instax mini Evo: For Teens Who Love Photos

Ten lens effects times ten film effects gives 100 looks on the instax mini Evo. It takes digital photos first, so teens check each shot on the screen and print only the ones they like on instax mini film.

It prints from a phone over Bluetooth too, so friends’ photos can end up on the wall as well. A five photo story about a favorite place, stuck in a sketchbook with handwritten captions, makes a nice first project.

Film and a microSD card are sold separately. We’d tuck two packs of film in with the camera.

7. Makeblock mBot2: For Teens Getting Into Robotics

A distance sensor on the front, a color sensor underneath and a rechargeable battery inside, so there are no AA batteries to buy. The Makeblock mBot2 is built around a small programmable controller called CyberPi.

Coding starts with blocks in the free mBlock app and moves to Python on the same robot. We’d build a maze out of books on the floor, then use the distance sensor so it stops before it bumps a wall.

Makeblock rates it 8 and up. A teen who already codes may breeze through the first lessons, but the Python side keeps it from getting too easy.

8. Arduino Starter Kit R4: For Teens Who Want to Invent Electronics

About 100 parts and a printed book of 13 projects. The Arduino Starter Kit R4 centers on the Arduino UNO R4 WiFi board, with a breadboard, an LCD screen, a servo, a motor, sensors and plenty of LEDs.

Project one is a blinking light. It sounds tiny until your teen writes the code that makes it blink, and by the end of the week a lot of teens have a circuit that reacts to a button press or to light.

It needs a computer for the coding. Everything runs at low voltage, from USB or a 9V battery, and the one rule worth saying out loud is that nothing in the kit goes near a wall outlet.

9. Raspberry Pi 500: For Teens Who Want to Code Their Own Projects

A whole computer fits inside the keyboard of the Raspberry Pi 500. The desktop kit adds a mouse, a power supply, an HDMI cable, a 32GB SD card and the official beginner’s guide, and Raspberry Pi OS comes with free tools for coding in Python.

Teens can write a first Python game in an afternoon or run a small web page from it. Since it’s a separate machine, it’s a pretty safe place to break things without touching the family laptop.

No screen in the kit. An old monitor or a TV with an HDMI port works fine.

10. Makey Makey Classic: A Budget Tech Gift for Inventors

With the Makey Makey Classic, a banana can be the space bar. Anything a little conductive works, including foil, play dough and pencil drawings, hooked up with the 7 alligator clips in the box.

It suits the teen who’d enjoy building a game controller out of cardboard, and it works with Scratch projects straight away. Most first projects take less than an hour.

No software to install. It plugs into a Mac, Windows, Chromebook or Linux computer over USB.

Tech Gifts for Teens by Interest

If you already know what they’re into, start there. The AAP’s advice on making a family media plan is to pick apps and shows that teach and inspire creativity, and that works pretty well as a filter for tech gifts too.

For Teens Who Love Art and Design

The Wacom tablet is the natural pick for a teen who draws characters or comics. A teen who’d rather decorate things, like water bottles, T shirts and bedroom walls, will usually get more use out of the Cricut Joy Xtra.

For Teens Who Make Music and Videos

The MiniLab 3 suits the one who hums beats under their breath, and the GoPro suits the one who films everything. The instax mini Evo sits in between, since it’s really for teens who like their photos printed and stuck on a wall.

Gifts for Teens Who Like to Build

When we’re looking at gifts for teens who like to build, we’d probably check out mBot2 or the Arduino kit first.

Some teens take apart old remotes just to see what’s inside. For them, the X-MAKER STEM 3D printer means they can design a part that’s missing and print it at home.

For Teens Who Want to Code

You can go a lot further with the Raspberry Pi 500, though Makey Makey tends to get more laughs in the first week.

Both of them work with Scratch, MIT’s free coding platform. Scratch is designed for ages 8 to 16, so a teen who’s never written code won’t feel lost on day one.

How to Pick the Right Tech Gift for a 13 to 16 Year Old

Before you order anything, it helps to go through the four checks below, because a gift that misses one of them tends to end up back in its box.

Look at What They Already Own

A lot of these gifts lean on a computer. Pew’s 2024 survey of teens and technology found 88% of US teens had a desktop or laptop at home, or access to one, so most families have one somewhere.

It’s worth asking, though, if your teen is allowed to install music or coding software on it before you order.

We’d also look behind the TV before buying the Raspberry Pi 500, since it needs a free HDMI port and a screen. The MiniLab 3 and the Arduino kit both plug into a USB port. The Wacom gives you more options, because Chromebooks and some Android phones work too.

Match the Gift to Their Experience

ISTE’s standards for students talk about a design cycle, where students develop a prototype, test it and then refine it. We’d look for a gift that lets a teen go round that cycle lots of times, with a first project small enough to work on the first evening.

If your teen has never coded, Makey Makey or mBot2 is a gentler place to begin. Teens who already write a bit of Python at school will probably get bored with those, and can go straight to the Arduino kit or the Raspberry Pi.

Count the Running Costs

A few of these gifts need refills. One pack of instax mini film is 10 photos, which can be gone after one sleepover. Cricut vinyl and 3D printer filament get used up too, and some music and editing apps start asking for a subscription after the free part ends.

We’d put a starter pack of whatever the gift uses in the same box, so the first project doesn’t sit waiting for another order to arrive.

Set Up Accounts and Safety Together

Several of these gifts need an app account, including Cricut, GoPro and instax, so it’s worth going through the privacy settings with your teen on day one. It doesn’t take long, and teens often know where the settings are faster than their parents do.

For a 3D printer, NIOSH’s 3D printing safety poster suggests choosing PLA filament over ABS when you can, which is a sensible default for a bedroom or home office.

Final Thoughts on Tech Gifts for Teens

The best tech gifts for teens are usually the ones they’re still using in March, halfway through a project they came up with themselves. Start with what they already like doing, and add the supplies so the first day isn’t spent waiting.

If designing real objects is their thing, see how AOSEED’s creative 3D printing platform fits the app, the model library and the printers together.

FAQs

What’s a good tech gift for a teenager?

A good one matches something they already do. We’d go by what they did last weekend: a teen who spent it drawing will use a pen tablet, and one who spent it pulling apart an old speaker will get more from a robot kit or a 3D printer.

Which tech gifts are good for a 13 year old?

Gifts that work on the first day, like Makey Makey, the Wacom Intuos Small or mBot2. If their interests are still closer to 10 or 11, our list of skill building tech gifts for younger kids has easier picks.

What tech gifts do 15 and 16 year olds actually want?

By 15 or 16 a lot of teens are done with anything that looks like a toy, which is why a GoPro, a Raspberry Pi 500 or a 3D printer they can design for usually goes over well. The tutorials they’ve been watching lately are usually the clearest hint.

Is a 3D printer a good gift for a teenager?

Yes, for a teen who likes design or engineering and doesn’t mind waiting a bit. Prints take time and filament runs out, but they can start with ready made models in AOSEED’s X-MAKER App and move on to their own designs.

What are the best STEM gifts for teens right now?

The ones that mix building with code. Arduino is mostly about electronics. With the Raspberry Pi it’s more about programming, mBot2 sits somewhere between the two, and a 3D printer is the one for design. We’d pick whichever is closest to what your teen already spends time on.

Are there good tech gifts for teens under $50?

Yes, there are a few. Wacom had the Intuos Small at $39.95 in October 2026. Makey Makey Classic is just over at $51.95, and a couple of packs of instax film or a roll of Cricut vinyl make good add ons to a bigger gift.

Do tech gifts like these teach real skills?

They can, as long as the teen keeps using them. Coding, electronics and design all show up in real jobs, and the BLS outlook for computer and IT jobs projects faster than average growth from 2025 to 2035.