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Any programmers know if there is an easy way to build a vote counter that could use the XML stats sheet off of the site to monitor our position?
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i did a project involving this a semester back - it's fairly easy to do (no more than 5 lines of code) using a java xml parser such as Rome:
https://rome.dev.java.net/
but what useful things could you do with it besides create a pretty graph? all the info you want is already right there.
i too think that you really need to talk directly to the school officials about this and let them know about the help you have gotten, and if they want to win this then it is well within their grasp. the rest is up to them.