With limited machines and students pressed for time, coordinating laundry day in the dorms can often turn into a game of chance.

Students quickly learn cleaning their clothes is easier said than done, whether they’re trying to snag an open washer in peak hours or are rushing back to switch clothes into a dryer before another resident has removed their clean, but wet, wares. But university officials hope to avoid these laundry day woes with a new online monitoring system called TerpWash, which Residential Facilities unveiled Monday after five years of planning.

Students can use the online system to check the availability of machines, reserve washers or dryers and receive notifications via text or email to remind them to pick up their laundry when it’s done.

Residential Facilities officials encourage students to log in to the TerpWash website, terpwash.umd.edu, using their directory IDs and passwords and begin using the features the system offers.

“Students won’t have to walk down to the laundry room just to find out there are no available machines,” said Chris Moore, Residential Facilities’ administrative assistant director. “They won’t have to stand in the laundry room waiting and waiting for a machine or for their loads to finish. TerpWash will give students better ability to manage their time.”

The system is connected to Terrapin Express, a pre-paid account that enables students to use their student IDs as debit cards at participating locations across the campus.

Students have been able to use Terrapin Express to pay for wash and dry cycles in dorm laundry rooms since 2008.

Students using Terrapin Express can log in to TerpWash to reserve up to two machines at a time for 10 minutes to ensure a washer or dryer will be on hold for them when they get to the laundry room.

They can also set up a notification system to receive a text or email two minutes before their wash or dry cycle is complete, and another reminder when the cycle is actually over.

Although the machine reservation and notification system functions of TerpWash are only available to students using Terrapin Express, all students can check the availability of machines and see approximately how much longer each machine will be in use.

Residential Facilities officials began researching software systems and other products for monitoring laundry rooms in the spring of 2008.

“We had seen systems similar to TerpWash at conferences and heard about new technologies to monitor laundry rooms, so we started looking into how to apply the products available on the market to this campus,” Moore said.

Moore presented the possibility of the TerpWash system to the Residence Hall Association about a year and a half ago and began working with the association’s Residential Facilities Advisory Board to seek student input and test the system before releasing it to students.

“We have been trying to release TerpWash for a while now, but we would hit a bug or hiccup and have to get that fixed to make sure we release a usable and user-friendly product,” said Scott Kincaid, board chairman during much of the development of TerpWash.

“I’ve tested it a lot, and it’s definitely saved me some trips downstairs,” the junior information systems and theatre major said.

Kelsey Cycan transferred from another university that already had an online laundry monitoring system in place. Though it was slower coming to this campus, it should be a great resource for students, said Cycan, a senior English major.

“It was a horrible system before. You’d walk down and all the machines would be full, and there were problems with people removing your clothes before you got back if you didn’t come back fast enough,” Cycan said. “I remember actually missing the laundry system at my old school when I transferred here.”

Several students said they were excited about the ability to check machine availability.

“I would use it just so I don’t have to come down and find all the machines taken, then have to go back upstairs or wait around in the laundry room,” said Melanie Zahka, a sophomore food science major.

Shanese Gordon, a sophomore criminology and criminal justice major, said she would consider using TerpWash, but she already has a system of her own to avoid the machine availability issues.

“I usually do my laundry at odd times during the week,” Gordon said, “so there’s always a machine free.”