After not being programmed for the first three weeks of the semester and not fully functioning after that due to a glitch, card readers in residence hall laundry facilities are finally functioning properly.
The University’s All-Campus Office handled all of the programming of the card readers in all of the laundry facilities, according to Barry Olson, University Housing-Facilities director.
He said the card readers in the laundry facilities have been up and running since Sept. 9, but a glitch remained after that where students could not pay for the machines to run multiple cycles.
Prior to the now functional card readers, some students, especially freshmen, had complaints about having to find change or not being able to do laundry at all because they were unable to use their All-Campus cards as payment.
“I never even worried about using the card because I always heard the card readers were down,” Deborah White, a junior in textile engineering, said.
After the University programmed all the machines, Olson claims there have been no problems with them except for the glitch with running multiple cycles.
Several students said they had problems using the dryer for more than one cycle.
“I had to swipe my card every 15 minutes for an hour just to dry my clothes,” Natalie Griffith, a freshman in communication, said.
It did not take as long to solve this problem as it did to completely program the card readers, Olson said.
“We soon reprogrammed all of the machines to get multiple cycles,” he said.
Now that the card readers are operating, students said they have less to worry about.
“It’s not such a pain anymore to do my laundry because I don’t have to go find change,” Casey Yarbrough, a junior in philosophy and psychology, said.
As a Resident Assistant for Watauga Residence Hall, Yarbrough also had many complaints from his residents when the card readers were not programmed.
“My residents were pretty mad when they weren’t able to use their cards to pay for the machines, and there was nothing I could do for them.” Yarbrough said. “Since they’ve been working, I haven’t had any complaints about them.”
Olson said since all of the programming has been completed on the card readers, there have been no problems with them.
“We expect that throughout the year, there may be a few network drop issues but no drastic problems with the card readers,” Olson said.