The 10 Best 12 Year Old Boy Gifts

ThinkFun Gravity Maze turns a marble run into a logic puzzle. Each card places a few towers and a target, and the player adds the rest so a dropped marble lands on target. The cards climb from easy to hard enough to stump grown-ups, so a tween stays busy long after simpler toys get dull. It won a Toy of the Year award. It's a solo game, and once every card is solved, the challenge is mostly over.

For a kid who likes to see how machines move, the LEGO Technic Bush Plane hides a working piston engine behind its nose. Spin the propeller and the little pistons pump up and down, and the wing flaps tilt by hand. The zebra print nods to planes used in wildlife conservation. It's a low-cost way into Technic, but the box is rated for younger builders, so a seasoned fan may finish it in one evening.

Laser tag gets a tween off the couch, and the Laser X Original Two Player set works in the yard by day or in a dark basement. Each player gets a blaster and a chest sensor, and the beam is invisible infrared light, like a TV remote. A voice in the blaster calls out hits and gives tips mid-game. Every Laser X set works with the others, so friends can bring their own. Each box covers only two players.

Electronics without a soldering iron is the appeal of the Snap Circuits Jr. SC-100. Color-coded parts snap onto a plastic board to build an alarm, a flying saucer that launches off a motor and more than 100 other circuits. The manual draws every build step by step, and the board runs on a pair of AA batteries. It's aimed at younger kids, so a gadget fan may race through it, though bigger Snap Circuits sets can add parts later.

National Geographic Da Vinci Battalion is a wood kit for three siege machines drawn from Leonardo da Vinci's ideas: a catapult, a giant crossbow called a ballista and an early cannon. The laser-cut pieces push out of sheets and go together with rubber bands and no tools, and each model takes an hour or more. The box is rated 12 and up, so it fits this age. Some parts are thin and can snap during assembly, so go slowly.

Water does the work in the Teach Tech Hydrobot Arm. Syringes of water push and pull a robot arm that swings around, lifts and grips, with no batteries or motors. Building it is the real gift: plan on several hours of careful assembly, and the maker's age rating starts at 12. The gripper swaps for a suction cup. A loose fitting can leak or stall the arm, so check each tube as it goes on.

A throwing game that packs into a small mesh bag, the Popdarts PRO Pack has two teams toss soft suction darts at a window, fridge or car door. The dart closest to the marker scores, and points cancel out the way they do in cornhole, so games stay close. A free phone app can keep score. The darts grab glass and glossy paint, but they slide off brick, wood and anything else with texture.

Boiling boogers, a vomiting test tube and glowing worms are the hook in the National Geographic Gross Science Kit. Behind the jokes sit real lessons about polymers, acids and chemical reactions. The box covers 15 experiments, and a booklet adds 30 more using things from the kitchen. Wear eye protection, and keep an adult nearby. A kit can arrive short a packet, and a few experiments fizzle, so check the contents first.

A kalimba sounds pleasant from the first pluck, which makes the Newlam Kalimba a low-pressure first instrument. It's a wooden thumb piano: you pluck steel keys with your thumbs, and each key has its note stamped on it, so the songbook is simple to follow. It's quiet enough for a bedroom and needs no batteries or amp. The keys can slip out of tune after a knock, and retuning means tapping them with a small hammer.

The Way Things Work Now by David Macaulay explains machines from levers and windmills to lasers and Wi-Fi, mostly in detailed, funny drawings. A woolly mammoth wanders through the pages to keep the science light. It's a book a curious kid opens again and again rather than reads straight through, and this revised edition brings the classic up to date with digital tech. It's a big, heavy hardcover, so it lives on a desk, not in a backpack.