The Future of UPrep.lol

Tl;dr:

I, Griffin Guthrie, the UPrep student who created UPrep.lol, will graduate this summer. I'm looking for someone in 9th or 10th grade who I can pass the project on to. If I don't find anyone, UPrep.lol will shut down after the close of the 2024-2025 school year.

UPrep.lol and Our Community

When I started UPrep.lol, I mostly did it out of boredom, as a side project. Inspired by a function of the website timeanddate.com, I wanted to see if I could make a countdown clock that would work for the UPrep schedule, so that I could, for example, conveniently know how much more Community Time I had before my next class at a glance.

Except for a change from an older clock image that I found on google during the earliest days of the project to a more modern, actually ticking clock made specifically for the site, UPrep.lol hasn't really changed much over the nearly three years it's been a thing.

For those curious, here's the old clock:

I never really expected this to catch on at UPrep like it has. I would like to thank you all for your support, and I'm happy that I could provide something useful for every UPrep student.

But Griffin!? What happens when you graduate?

Because I am now a senior, several people have asked me this question, whether in person or via text. The truth is, it depends. If I can find someone to keep maintaining it after I'm gone, hopefully someone from 9th or 10th grade so that they'll be able to maintain the project for another couple years, UPrep.lol can keep running after I'm gone. However, I won't be able to maintain it from college, and if no one else steps up, UPrep.lol will have to go offline.

If I find someone to take the project over:

I don't currently intend for there to be any major changes to how the site operates while I'm still at school. I'll probably spend the rest of my time here getting to know the person who will receive ownership of the site and making sure they're a good person who is a capable manager of the site. After that, it will be up to them to do with the site as they wish. I will have entrusted them with the site, they will be the one paying for the domain (likely out-of-pocket, as I have done), and they may make any changes they see fit. I hope that whoever I pass the project on to will continue to provide helpful timekeeping services to UPrep students.

If I don't find someone:

The domain, "uprep.lol", is going to expire in August, 2025, if it is not renewed before then. This means that the site will go down and be inaccessible, and typing "uprep.lol" into your browser will either show an error or some random advertising site (there are some ad agencies that buy recently-expired domains to show ads on them). Even if I were willing to continue paying out-of-pocket for the site to continue running, it would be impossible for me to continue getting accurate schedule information for when UPrep has a special schedule day. This means that students would no longer be able to rely on the site to be as accurate as possible, leading to confusion. Continuing to pay for the site's upkeep while not actually updating the schedule information on the site would be contrary to the reason it exists.

This means that, at some point on or shortly after August 11, 2025, unless someone volunteers to continue the project, UPrep.lol will, unfortunately, cease to exist. If this happens, I have faith that UPrep will learn and adapt to doing mental math while staring at a wall clock to ensure their punctuality, just like the good ol' days.

Please stay tuned for more information. If we (potential future maintainers and/or I) have updates, we will make sure visitors of UPrep.lol in the spring are aware of what's coming up for the site.

If you are interested in taking over the project:

There are a number of things you will need to know before you even consider taking over this project. Think of this as a big heads-up that you will not want to ignore:

  • Classes of 2025 and 2026, I won't be passing this on to you. All of you have less than two years left at UPrep. It would be very silly of me to pass the project on to a fellow senior who will graduate with me, and it would be unfortunate to pass it on to a current junior who would only be able to maintain it for a year.

  • As of now, March 27th 2025, UPrep.lol costs $20.18 per year (plus tax) to maintain. And this total is increasing with inflation.

    • This means that you, prospective developer, will need to find a way to pay this out-of-pocket. Is UPrep.lol worth $20 to you? $40? $60? If you're really passionate about the project and want to keep it alive, you will, unfortunately, have to have cash to maintain it.

    Note that this is only the cost of the domain itself, which is leased from a domain registrar. These kinds of yearly costs are unavoidable for anyone who wants to set up a website. Fortunately, at UPrep.lol, no other part of the hosting setup costs any money at all, so the domain renewal fees are all you'll have to deal with.

  • UPrep.lol is written in HTML, CSS, and Javascript. These are the standard languages of the web, and you'll be expected to know these well or be ready to learn them with very little help from me.

    • No, Javascript is not the same as Java. They are very different languages, but if you know one really well, you should be able to learn the other without too much difficulty (because both are programming languages). As of now, I don't think they teach HTML or CSS or Javascript at UPrep.

    Trust me, you do NOT want to be stuck in the position of being the only person in charge of a project and not know how the project works. Vibe coding is not a sustainable solution.

  • I will want to meet with you to get to know you and show you how the project works, so that I can best prepare you to take it over.

If you are still undeterred and feeling confident despite how much I may have scared you in the previous few bullet points, please shoot me an email at [email protected].

Thank you for reading this page and enjoying UPrep.lol. Expect more information to come in the following weeks or months.

- Griffin Guthrie

PS

A few people have asked me why I removed the links to games from the menu bar. I might as well settle that here: I noticed that all four links were blocked on UPrep's wifi. I took this as a sign that UPrep's administration did not want my site to distribute links to distracting games that students might decide to play in class instead of paying attention. To avoid any chance of future conflict, I removed the now-dead-at-UPrep links from UPrep.lol. I would have appreciated some notice from the administration regarding this change so that we could have developed a mutual understanding and cooperated in this matter, but it's really not that big of a deal and, personally, I'm not upset at all at their choice to enforce their own rules. It would probably be better for most of you to actually pay attention in class instead of playing games in the back.