I was reluctant to get a 3D printer for my 11-year-old daughter. Perhaps I was being selfish, but, like a lot of parents, I spent the entire Christmas season dreading the phrase “some assembly required.” I didn't know much about 3D printing beyond reading stories by tabletop gamers and Starbucks about its various uses. I do not aspire to play Warhammer or construct a coffee shop, and since I play with and assemble gadgets for work, I do not enjoy doing it recreationally.

But my 11-year-old daughter and her friends are into 3D printing. They're forever buying and trading 3D-printed critters. She got a 3D printer pen last summer and spent a few weeks playing with it. By the time she started asking for a 3D printer, she already knew all about Thingiverse and Printables and had ideas about what she would want to print with her very own machine.

If you're a technical person or have done some 3D printing yourself, you may be surprised to learn that many parents aren't so sure they want to get involved in this trend. It's a common enough conundrum that a number of Reddit threads function as forums for adults questioning whether elementary-school-age children can use a printer on their own. I found the answers there mostly unsatisfying, as the Redditors tended to immediately jump into semi-technical advice (“Don't get them a resin printer, stick to PLA, PETG, and TPU!”) that doesn't really answer the question for a normie.

Ultimately, I decided to indulge my daughter’s wishes and see just how much of a hassle it would be to get her up and running on the new Elegoo Centauri Carbon 3D printer. I'm pleased to report that the printer is about as easy to set up and operate as a Barbie Dream House. I found it so simple, in fact, that I then agreed to test the Snapmaker U1, a far more advanced four-color printer. Likewise, I asked my colleague Divya Viswanathan, who was facing a similar printing push from her elementary-aged son, Leo Magnusson, to test a device specifically built for kids: the Toybox printer. The Toybox proved more limited in what it can print, but was even easier than both the Centauri Carbon and U1 to deal with, using an intuitive, kid-friendly app.

Based on our personal experience, here’s what Divya and I would share with other parents who are semi-reluctant to introduce their kids to 3D printing.

How Much Space Does It Take Up?

While I was pleasantly surprised by the ease required to get my daughter up and printing (I'll discuss this more in a bit), I’ll concede that these devices do merit space considerations. I'm sure many other parents also gauge their willingness to buy their kid any gift at least partially by how much space it’ll require in the house.

The Centauri Carbon is certainly a large device—about the size of a laundry basket—at about 20 inches tall and 16 inches wide. And because 3D printers work by melting filament (in this case, PLA, which is a polyester), there are fumes. It won’t fog up your house with the stench of melted plastic, but I still wouldn’t want it operating in my daughter's room all the time.

I had the Centauri Carbon sitting on an Ikea storage locker in my library corridor (I have a weird old house with rooms whose definitions do not neatly map to modern homes), and it doesn't bother anyone. The printer is about as loud as my dishwasher, and I can hear the fan from the next room when it's on. When it's printing, the tool head rotates around on rails in a herky-jerky way; until I stabilized the locker against the wall, the whole thing shook.

The U1 is a little larger, but it has the same general footprint as the Centauri, just with a bit more overhang from the locker upon which it's stationed. Given that the U1 has four filaments hanging from it, this size is impressively compact, relatively speaking. It also shakes the cabinet, though it moves more slowly since it's always swapping between printing heads.

However, no 3D printer for kids is as petite as the Toybox, which measures less than 10 inches tall and 7 inches wide. It's only a little larger than a Folgers coffee can. Divya set up hers in her Manhattan apartment without issue. Her son Leo finds it well worth the space, she says: “It's like a toy store in your house. Definitely the gift that keeps giving all year round.”

Leo has used the printer as part of his entrepreneurial endeavors—he has his own company in the aerospace industry and rewards other kids in the company with a 3D-printed championship cup.

How Much Hassle Is 3D Printing?

A little less than a decade ago, WIRED executive editor Brian Barrett (then a lowly gadget writer, now an esteemed member of WIRED's upper management) wrote that “a 3D printer in every household was never going to happen.” I've certainly made worse tech prognostications (I didn't think the iPhone touchscreen would work well enough to render keyboards obsolete!), but I think Brian may have been wrong on this one. If you ask my daughter and her friends, at least, they sure hope he’s wrong—they are sold on the tech.

That's why I'd ultimately recommend buying one for your kid if they ask: Not to keep up with the Joneses, but because these aren’t going anywhere, and your child will probably know how to fix issues without the whole thing becoming a mess for you to clean up. I remember my parents didn't know how to program a VCR, but I intuitively understood. This is like that.

The Toybox is the easiest-to-use 3D printer for kids that we tested, and I'd recommend it for those who are in lower elementary grades. It has many quick-print options (20 minutes to a half-hour), which is a win since no kid wants to wait a day to print something. The app is constantly updating with new content to match the latest trends, and Divya reports that it does a pretty good job of printing from photos. Her son imported the logo for her father-in-law's company and somewhat successfully re-created it. Because it doesn't make you code and is so simple to use, the Toybox may not be as strong in the STEM department; it's more like a little self-serve toy store.

The Elegoo Centauri Carbon that I tested is also super streamlined to use; I recommend it for kids in upper elementary grades. Because it's single-color, there's not much complexity to the physical setup, and the slicing software is relatively straightforward. My daughter was downloading zip files with slicer files within 30 minutes, allowing her to print phone stands, fidget spinners, and critters. Single-color prints obviously do not look as cool, but you can get around that with shiny dual-tone filaments that add some visual interest. The only issue I ran into was a clogged filament head, which backed up and burst open, making a small mess and requiring replacement. The part is cheap, shipped quickly, and I installed it in less than 10 minutes using one small hex wrench.

The Snapmaker U1 proved most advanced, making it a good option for kids in middle school or above. Four colors make for prints that are far more interesting and nuanced. However, this printer is a lot slower since it switches between heads as it goes and has to do little runs of the previous color. My daughter has done several prints that take up to 23 hours, which means it is making some noise in the dead quiet of the wee hours of the night—a drawback regardless of your kid’s age or technological capability. The software is also more complicated, and so far, my 11-year-old has stuck to the preloaded options instead of downloading files from the internet and sending them over.

That means it's a printer she can grow with, though. And I do fully expect her to keep printing for years to come. For kids of this era, 3D printers are just part of life, which is probably a good thing and definitely a reason to jump on the bandwagon.

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