The Office of Facilities and GUSA will launch LaundryAlert, an app that shows which machines are in use and offers alerts about specific machines, in late November.
Students will no longer lug a bag full of laundry across their building only to find that all the machines are taken when the Office of Facilities and the Georgetown University Student Association launch a new mobile application late this fall.
LaundryAlert, an online and mobile application used by many universities, shows which machines are in use and offers alerts about specific machines.
The Office of Facilities currently operates 14 laundry rooms across campus. The system upgrade would require modifications to each washing machine and dryer to establish an Internet connection.
GUSA Vice President Adam Ramadan (SFS ’14) spearheaded the initiative within GUSA, working with Vice President for Planning and Facilities Management Robin Morey to determine its feasibility. Ramadan hopes to integrate the service with the Georgetown mobile app and said the university should complete the system by the end of November.
“Over the course of the summer, we came up with common sense things to improve campus,” Ramadan said. “Laundry falls under facilities and we pinpointed that.”
Morey said that the idea to bring LaundryAlert to campus came from a post on Georgetown Ideas, which received 201 votes, making it the 26th most popular idea.
Facilities will pay for the cost of the upgrade, but the change will not affect current laundry prices, which stand at $1.50 per wash or dry. Schools that currently use LaundryAlert include the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University.
Students were generally enthusiastic about the idea, but some doubted that it would solve the problem of newly clean laundry being stacked on top of machines or on the floor.
“I think it’s useful,” Manasi Parekh (COL ’15) said. “It’s annoying when I go there and machines are not working, but I don’t think I’d use the alerts a lot.”
“I time [laundry] myself. If you’re attached to technology, it might be useful, but I feel like people will still take out your laundry,” Monica Vizconde (COL ’14) said.
Once the upgrade is finalized and the application is released, GUSA and Facilities will work to publicize the effort.
“We will make sure every Georgetown student will know about it,” Ramadan said. “Being in Lau at 11 [p.m.] and knowing you have to do laundry, but not having to walk all the way to your dorm only to find the [laundry] room is full would be nice.”
