[AccessD] miracle required apparently

[Steve Schapel]

Hi all

I'm trying to do something that I initially thought would be reasonably 
easy.  But alas, so far success has eluded me.  Any insights accepted 
with much gratitude!

The goal:  Assign a number of Participants to a number of Activities 
over a number of Sessions.

Very simple example:
     4 Sessions
     4 Activities
     8 Participants (therefore 2 per Activity)

To illustrate:
Let's say the sessions are 9am, 10am, 11am, 12pm.
Let's sat the activities are chess, tai chi, bowls, diving
Let's say the participants are A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H

The stipulation is that each participant should do each activity one 
time.

By trial and error brute force, I know that there is at least one 
solution, namely:

                      chess       tai chi       bowls        diving
   9am           A & E        C & F        D & G        B & H
10am           C & G       A & H       B & E         D & F
11am           D & H      B & G        A & F         C & E
12pm           B & F       D & E        C & H        A & G

HOWEVER, I have tried multiple angles of looping through nested (and 
sometimes randomised) recordsets based on the core data elements 
(sessions, activities, and participants), to write the assignments to 
the available slots in a schedule table, and to my shock (and horror) we 
always reach the point in the procedure where it gets stuck, due to 
trying to assign a participant to two activities in the same session, 
but with no valid alternative slot available.

There is no problem if the model calls for the super simple option of 
only one participant for each activity.  But otherwise, no dice, so far.

There MUST be a way to make this work?  Surely?

Thanks a lot.

Regards
Steve