Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Tilt-a-Vend

 Tilt button for Vending Machines
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The Tilt button on this vending machine lights up when the following criteria are met.

1-The Machine has gone through the process of moving your item to the collection bin. 2- The machine senses no item in the bin 3- The customer has not opened the bin door.

Pressing the Tilt button shakes the interior of the machine, hopefully shaking your item loose and into the bin. If you cannot dislodge the item after three tries, the machine offers you your money back.

—dbsousa, May 02 2003

Vending Machine Deaths http://www.gearfactory.com/vending.php
Need I elaborate? [dbsousa, Oct 17 2004]

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       Oh, this would be so much nicer than butting up against the machine myself all the time. Hey and if you shook it hard enough you might get some bonus treats! +
—k_sra, May 02 2003
   

       flippers! can we have flippers?
—po, May 02 2003
   

       Sorry, I don't agree with this at all. If the machine can (2) Sense item / no item in the bin, why doesn't the machine (1) move you item towards the bin, (1A) repeating as necessary, until it (2) senses item in the bin?
—phundug, May 03 2003
   

       phundug: Because sometimes an item gets stuck in a fashion that its current moving parts can't fix. Under the Phundug Protocol, if the Twinkies in A5 get wedged in somewhere around F6, the machine will drop Twinke after Twinkie on top of the stuck one, until their combined weight frees the bottom one. End result: unearned Twinkies... A Human being is perfectly capable of determining when they need to shake the machine when his Twinkie is stuck. However, shaking the machine from without is potentially fatal. The tilt button acknowledges that the machine has done all it can to deliver the Twinkie, and now requires human judgement...
—dbsousa, May 03 2003
   

       Elegantly worded & quite intelligently "scientifical" explanation dbsousa. Of course, I think this idea is terrific and it is made even better with the tinkering of the person who suggested the horizonal version and the flippers.
—thecat, May 03 2003
   

       One of my clients used to have a vending machine which would routinely jam products. The design of the machine machine was such, however, that a bent hanger could be dislodge stuck objects [and also, if one was a crook, dislodge unpaid-for objects]. In an apparent acknowledgement of the machine's habit of jamming, there was in fact a bent hanger hanging on the wall which was often used, by myself and others, for the purpose of clearing jams.
—supercat, May 04 2003
   

       //A Human being is perfectly capable of determining when they need to shake the machine when his Twinkie is stuck// this sounds so painful <ouch>
—po, May 04 2003
   

       like it.
—neilp, Dec 21 2004
   

       I had and drafted much the same idea as dbousa, though without the need for the mechanism to be fitted to the interior of the machine: The Vending Machine Throbber.   

       To prevent your snack choice hanging, trapped, Midnight Express-like, between the glass and the spiral loop of your vending machine, have the supplier mount the vending machine on a non-tilting vibrating platform, activated by a chunky footpedal, which should provide the agitation necessary to free your selection from its suspense.   

       The mechanism should make a pleasingly bassy throbbing noise, ending in the muffled clank of Star Bar on vending tray.   

       Hey ho.
—calum, Mar 08 2005
   


 

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