Extemp prep room clock

What the extemp prep room is for

The extemp prep room clock lets a coach or tournament director track every student's individual prep countdown on a single screen. Each student gets their own card with their own clock, their own controls, and their own audible bells at the 5-minute, 1-minute, and zero marks. Up to 10 students can be running simultaneously.

The standard alternative — a stopwatch app per student, or one timer shown on a screen with no individual tracking — works for one or two students but breaks down at scale. A coach running an extemp practice round with eight students has to either trust each student's self-tracking or constantly cycle between phones. This page replaces both.

What extemp is (and what this tool supports)

Extemporaneous Speaking is an individual speech event where competitors draw a topic — typically a current-events question — and have a fixed prep time (30 minutes in NSDA Extemp) to research, organise, and write a structured speech, which they then deliver from memory.

The tool supports five preset prep times:

• 30 minutes (Extemp). Standard NSDA Extemp prep window.
• 5 minutes (Impromptu). Standard collegiate Impromptu Speaking prep.
• 2 minutes (Impromptu). Shorter impromptu variant used at some high-school tournaments.
• 15 minutes (Practice). A middle option useful for in-class drills.
• Custom. Any duration from 1 to 60 minutes.

Although designed primarily for extemp and impromptu speaking, the multi-student structure also works for any practice scenario where multiple students need individual prep timers running concurrently — including silent reading drills, in-class essay writing, debate prep simulations, and group test preparation.

How to use it

1. Pick the prep time at the top of the page (30 min by default).
2. Set the number of students (1 to 10).
3. Each student card has a name field — students or the coach can fill in names so the cards are identifiable.
4. Optionally fill in the topic field on each card after the student draws their topic.
5. Either click ▶ Start on each card individually as students draw, or click ▶ Start all in the actions row to start every idle student at once.
6. Each card's colour and status badge update as the prep time elapses: green during the bulk of prep, yellow at 5 minutes left, red at 1 minute left, flashing red after overtime.
7. Bells sound per-student at the 5-minute warning, 1-minute warning, and zero (overtime). The first click anywhere on the page enables audio (browser requirement).
8. Use Pause, Resume, Reset, or Remove on individual cards as needed. The ↺ Reset all button resets every card back to Ready state.

Use cases for coaches and tournament directors

• Extemp practice rounds. The original use case. Eight students draw topics, prep for 30 minutes, and deliver speeches in sequence. The coach watches one screen instead of eight phones.
• Impromptu drills. Use the 5-minute preset for college-style Impromptu Speaking or 2-minute for shorter variants. The coach can call topics every few minutes and start the timer for whichever student is up.
• Mixed-event practice. If different students need different prep times, set the custom preset and run one round per time bracket, or run separate sessions.
• Classroom essay or reading practice. The same multi-timer structure works for any timed individual task. Set custom prep, fill in student names, and students self-monitor their own time without disturbing each other.
• Small-tournament time tracking. For local tournaments without a tab system, the page can serve as a quick way to track each competitor's prep window while a single judge oversees the room.

How the bells work

Each student card sounds three independent bells during a prep session:

• 5-minute warning. Single short tone at exactly 5 minutes remaining.
• 1-minute warning. Single short tone at exactly 1 minute remaining.
• Overtime. Distinctive double tone the moment the timer hits zero, plus a brief flash of the card to draw the coach's eye.

Bells are unique per student and play whenever any student's clock crosses these thresholds. If two students hit the same warning at the same time the bells overlap (both play). Audio is enabled by clicking anywhere on the page once — browsers require a user gesture before allowing sound, which is why the audio context is locked until the first click.

Tips for running the room

• Have students fill in their own names at the start — easier than the coach typing eight names while the room settles.
• Use the topic field as soon as a student draws — it acts as a written record the coach can scan to give relevant feedback after the round.
• For NSDA Extemp practice, run the 30-minute preset exactly as in competition. The discipline of using the real prep window is part of the practice.
• "Start all" is fastest when everyone draws topics simultaneously; individual starts are better when students draw one-by-one.
• The screen does not need to be visible to students — they have their own watches or phones for individual tracking. The clock is for the coach.

Other practice tools

For single-speech prep plus speech timing in one flow, the motion timer handles prep countdown and speech timer for solo practice. For structured multi-interval practice sessions, the flow timer runs work-and-break cycles. For random debate motions, the motion generator pulls from a curated pool of 150+ tournament motions.

For real competition timing, the two-device timer handles all major formats including Lincoln-Douglas, Policy, Public Forum, World Schools, and British Parliamentary.

Frequently asked questions