A drink-vending machine dispensing all sorts of weird and wonderful cans of Revolting radish, Warm worm, Rusty nail and the like is the setting of this series of learning objects.
The 'The vile vendor: questions' learning object asks students to select a word from a bank of five - impossible, unlikely, equal, likely and certain - to describe the chance of the vile vendor serving a particular drink. Feedback is provided for both correct and incorrect responses to reinforce students' understanding of the language and the concept of randomness. After a series of this type of question, students are offered the opportunity to fill the vendor: 'Select the drinks so that it is unlikely you will get a Cabbage drink.' In this mode, as in the previous one, the idea of chance resulting in an outcome different to that of the theoretical probability is explored.