DEMO - The Ice Cream Vending Machine

When I saw the demo this morning, I knew I'd have to give this a try.

So when the late afternoon wave of tiredness hit me, I went over the the MooBella machine and gave it a try.

This thing is pretty impressive.  It's got a very simple user interface.

You select the kind of ice cream you want.

Then you select your mixins.

Then you select low fat or "rich" which obviously means "high fat".

I chose the "high fat" because I'd rather not eat ice cream (and generally don't) unless its the good stuff.

Then you wait while it goes through the various steps.

And you get your scoop of ice cream.

I went for caramel with chocolate chip mixins.

And it was about as good as Carvel.

Not Ben and Jerry's but not bad for a vending machine.

Comments

[jackson]

How long did you wait?

[Rick]

Every high school and grade school across America needs one of these!

[JayR]

I wonder how much preservative is needed to enable this stuff to sit in vending machines for indefinite periods. But if I'm willing to buy a frozen Nestles Crunch bar for $2, or Dippin' Dots for $4, then I'd have to give this a try.

[erin]

I read about this machine in the WSJ and find it totally amazing! But, in schools? Ugh. Well, I guess it beats soda...but not by much. How about for schools, ONLY the low-fat and a frozen yogurt option for all the lactose intolerant youngins.

Seems like these days, it's the $$ that gets chains/vendors into schools. There are healthy regional chains...but they are not usually the ones selected to be on a school's campus. Georgetown, my alma mater, recently signed up several fast food vendors...mostly ones selling the fatty stuff. And we wonder why obesity is a continuing problem.

[candice]

JayR: What you speak of exists. And trust me, people use up the stock in the machines fast enough that there is not an issue about ice cream going bad.

I did a co-op at DEC a bunch of years ago when I was going through college the first time. There was, buried deep on the second floor in the compilers division at ZKO, an ice cream vending machine. Work friends and I would make pilgrimages to it late at night, to get an ice cream sandwich or frozen snickers bar or something else like that. It used a vacuum to pick up treats from inside of a refrigerated chest and drop them in a slot, similar to how a toy crane works.