We all have seen the vending machines in the cafeteria, but what’s in them? The school vending machine has different kinds of snacks and drinks. They have veggie sticks, PopCorners, fig bars, Clif bars, Smartfood popcorn, diet sodas, and Ice drinks. But what are the kids’ opinions on these snacks?

Everybody at Osbourn has different opinions and favorites in the vending machines. Dominick Winston said, “The popcorn is my favorite snack in the vending machine only because everything else just tastes bad.” Popcorn is a lot of people’s favorite thing in the vending machine. Jayden Medina also said, “Probably the popcorn, just cause it’s something simple and not like all the other healthy stuff in the machine.” Popcorn seems to be a very popular answer from the people we interviewed.

A lot of people want to switch the snacks, saying that they would want a different variety of popular snacks. Adding snacks like Takis, Hot Cheetos, Lays chips, or even sour patch kids would benefit the usage of our vending machines. Kendall Metz said, ” I wish we had more access to more chip options, or maybe like protein bars or something sweet. I feel like a lot of people turn away from the vending machines because the food is all healthy.” Even though protein bars are considered healthy, more people would probably pick a protein bar over something like a fig bar. But some kids want healthy snacks like Karissa Madison. “I wish we had more protein-packed snacks or some whole food snacks, but I know it would be hard to find stuff like that; it’s also expensive to buy whole foods.”

Another issue is the drinks in the vending machine. Although the drinks don’t have that many people talking about them, we also found people wanting to switch out the drinks for different options.  Leslie Rivera said, “Yes, I do wish we had more soda options. I understand why they want us to have diet sodas and stuff, but sometimes I wish I could just buy a regular soda.” In the vending machines currently, there is no regular soda; all the sodas we have are diet or zero sugar.

They do have different drink options like Ice drinks that are Starburst flavored or juice options like apple juice, or just water. Kendal Metz said, “I like those Ice drinks, and the soda options are good, but they would be better if they were non-diet.”   Although everybody has different opinions on the snacks and drink options in the vending machine, there is a way we could solve this issue. A very good way we could end this vending machine conflict is just having more vending machines in general. We could have a vending machine with healthy snacks, and another one without healthy snacks. Maybe the students could fill out a form in Schoology and pick the different snacks they want in the vending machine. But at the end of the day, we are glad we have access to vending machines at our school despite people’s opinions on them.

Although the vending machine is usually a loyal and trusty friend, “usually” is still not always! Many students here have had technical difficulties with the machine. For the most part, though, these “technical difficulties”  just consist of students who thought the vending machine had taken their money.  This confusion arises when you pay with an online card, such as a Cash App card, an Apple card, or any other form of online payment. ” I don’t have any problems with the vending machine since I only use cash,” says Karissa Madison. “Whenever I go to the machine with my friends, though, and they do use their online card, they get mad because the vending machine will take $10 from them,” she stated.

After being a witness to this issue firsthand, the confusion and frustration on people’s faces are quite noticeable when they feel like they’ve just been mugged! The explanation for this is that the vending machine offers credit to the buyer. This means that you have $10 ready to spend, and if you end up using less than $1o you will eventually get the money that you did not spend back into your account.

Another topic that rises to the surface when you’re talking about the vending machine is how there is only one in the entire school.  Is the cafeteria really the most optimal place for a vending machine? What other places in the school are in need of a vending machine? These are all questions that come to mind. “There used to be more vending machines around. There used to be one in the aux gym hallway. I wish that the school had kept that one around,”  said Xavier Davis. Davis also stated that he wishes there were more vending machines because he “gets hungry throughout the day.”  This could be a common case among many students here at Osbourn, hunger throughout the day is not an uncommon thing among developing teens.  Karissa Madison gave her opinion by saying, ” I don’t think the cafeteria is the smartest place to put the vending machine. Like, yeah, I get why they would put it there, but if you’re in lunch and you’re eating something already, why would you want something from the vending machine? I think they should put a vending machine in the A wing. The A wing is probably the place where everybody passes at least once a day.” By putting these two students’ opinions together, you can see that there is quite a demand for more machines!

Another topic that gets brought up when you mention the vending machine could be the prices. Some items are priced higher than others, with drinks usually taking the lead with prices. But how are the students taking these prices? Jayden Medina stated, “  I think the pricing is fair for the most part; it’s not anything crazy or out of the ordinary. And everything is under 5 dollars, so it’s reasonable in my eyes.”  This opinion is only one side of the coin, though; you can get another thought process from Dominic Winston, with him stating:  ” I think the school should lower everything in the vending machine by 50 cents. In fact, make everything a dollar!”   These two ideas show that you can’t really win with the students and the vending machine because of how much everybody differs!

What do you think of the vending machine, though? Tell us your favorite item in the comments!