Oh, I don't believe they intend on locking the machines out by use of the card. I believe the way they want to set them up is by letting anyone with a school smartcard use them. What they already do however is keep the door to the laundry room locked. They started doing this when many non-students from the neighboring areas started coming over to the campus apartments and dorms and using the laundry rooms. The washers were always so tied up that the residents of the apartments couldn't ever get to use the machines. Keeping the door locked keeps out the non-students, but allows authorized use of the machines if visiting a resident. When I was a student here, they installed the locks, and suddenly, I could finally get a machine without having to wake up at 3AM. Come to think about it after you mention it, a non-student couldn't do wash and would need to borrow their sweetheart's card not only to get in to do their wash, but to pay for it as well.
Besides, I don't think that the suds event is all that big of a deal, it was nothing that couldn't be cleaned up with a little water and a mop in a few minutes. It was rather funny though looking at all those suds in there! The biggest reason everyone wants the machines to use smartcards is so they don't need to worry about getting quarters every time they want to wash clothes. I don't think a camera is really going to be all that necessary. There was a thought though of putting it on a live web feed, just so one could see if the washers are in use or not. I believe Speedqueen now though makes a washer that will report it's status to an internet server...that would be better than a cam pointed at the machines.
PArunner: I'm not in charge of the laundry department here, but I imagine if I present them with an option of a manufacturer of card readers that will work on our machines, they'll certainly enjoy the suggestion. The proposal was done about 3 years ago, and everyones' wondering why we don't have card boxes on our washers yet.