Robot Ice Cream Delivery

First off, sorry this review is so late today.  I try to keep myself to a midnight deadline, so as to keep the reviews coming one a day.  Unfortunately, Mark's father had surgery today, so we spent the day in Charleston.  It's now a quarter past midnight, and we are just getting home.

Because Mark has had such a stressful few days, we stopped to get a bite on the way home and grab some ice cream because that's what you do when someone is sad.  We popped into this place called the Charleston Creamery.  Having lived in State College, I was hoping for something that had unique flavors made on the spot.  That was not at all what this place was.  The Charleston Creamery was more like a wet dream for five year olds.  They had a bunch of toys to play with in the front of the store, with hand dipped ice cream at the counter.  There was also candy and toys for sale.

Standing king over all of that was the CiD & Friends ice cream machine.  The entire store was decorated with these cartoon robot characters, but their shrine was a machine that doled out ice cream.  For four of your american dollars, you got an ice cream debit card.  When you swiped it in the machine, the touch screen activated, letting you choose your ice cream treat.  You got to choose a total of six layers, three soft serve ice cream, three candy treats.  For your ice cream, you could choose chocolate, vanilla, or swirl.  The candy choices were M&Ms, Reese's Pieces, Jelly Belly jelly beans, sprinkles, Skittles, and some round candy I did not recognize.

Mark's concoction was:

     Jelly Belly jelly beans
     Vanilla Soft Serve
     Reese's Pieces
     Chocolate Soft Serve
     M&Ms
     Vanilla Soft Serve

Ordering ice cream via the touch screen was pretty cool, and I'm sure any child would love it.  Mark was pretty entertained by it, but the best part was yet to come.  Once you tell the machine you have completed your order, the robot arm activates!  It does a little dance and then creates the treat you requested.  It pulls a cup out of one area, gets the ice cream from another recessed spot, then begins assembling your toppings.  The candy is kept in tubes up top and travel down a long zig-zag tube into the ice cream cup as activated.  Obviously, to keep with the set up for your treat, it alternates between getting the ice cream and the candy.  When finished, the robot places your ice cream into a medium tube that turns around so you can take it out.

For a small child, or my husband, the show is most definitely worth four dollars.  He kept talking about his robot ice cream the rest of the night.  As to the quality of the snack, the ice cream is generic soft serve.  Mark usually prefers vanilla ice cream, but he said the chocolate was better in this instance.  Additionally, he warns to not get jelly beans in it, as they get very hard when cold.  I'll leave you to make your own joke there.