Sometimes when it's late, I'll walk over to Novack Cafe in the basement of Berry Library to get candy and Rockstar(tm) from the vending machines. Over time, I made a very important discovery.

The candy vending machine is of the kind that uses a type of coiled stop to dispense packages of goodies. Now, most candy (bars, gum, mints, Jolly Ranchers, etc) comes in a fairly rigid package that is handled well by the dispensing mechanism. Swedish Fish, on the other hand, come in a plastic pouch that doesn't settle well in the machine. Oftentimes, the mechanism will turn too far and dispense two packages instead of one. With only casual empirical data I would estimate that you can two Swedish Fish packages for the price of one in about 60% of purchases. This, coupled with the fact that Swedish Fish is an absolutely fantastic candy (much better than Jolly Ranchers) makes it an obvious choice.

In sharing this discovery, many pointed out to me that there is a similar effect when purchasing Sour Patch Kids, which also come in pouches. These, however, are heavier than Swedish Fish, and thus on the first purchase it is quite common for nothing to come out. On the second purchase, both the first bag and a second bag will come out. In this case you are still paying double for the extra pouch - except in the case when some poor soul abandons all hope after the first pouch fails to come out, and you, crafty weasel that you are, and seeing the bag hanging precariously on the spring mechanism pay once and get two for the price of one.

This post details how one might enjoy a statistically high, but not guaranteed chance of getting free candy at one specific vending machine in one specific library, if one happens to be in the Hanover area.


Other vending machine tricks.
Look at a coke machine. Count off the buttons from top to bottom or left to right as 1, 2, 3, 4
Press them in the order 4 2 3 1.

Example:
[ Coke ] <-- Hit this button last
[ Coke ] <-- Hit this button second
[ Diet Coke ] <-- Hit this button third
[ Sprite ] <-- Hit this button first
[Dasani]
[Etc]

You will be brought to a service menu. The red LED indicator that usually scrolls the message "Ice Cold Coca Cola 1.00" will display a new message to indicate this. Using the same controls, the buttons now become:

Button [ 1 ] - Exit/Back
Button [ 2 ] - Up
Button [ 3 ] - Down
Button [ 4 ] - Select

Playing with the menus allows you to access such information as the number sold of each item and the temperature of the machine. You will probably not be able to score free product.

This site provides a rather detailed analysis
http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/12/48/

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