Logical sudoku

[countrycousin]

There's another kind?

This is an exercise to express a common sudoku puzzle as a logic puzzle.  Mostly it is to see what it looks like.  It will never catch on, I fear - this version looks like it was generated by a computer, for good reason.

But, for the record:

At  Enormous U they teach human ecology, fine arts, and industrial relations and play football, hockey, and lacrosse.
At  St. Jochs they teach social science, languages, and political science and play football, hockey, and lacrosse.
At  Mid Institute they teach engineering, architecture, and computer science and play football, hockey, and lacrosse.
At  Big State they teach human ecology, fine arts, and industrial relations and play swimming, tennis, and marathon.
At  Ivied College they teach social science, languages, and political science and play swimming, tennis, and marathon.
At  Polytech they teach engineering, architecture, and computer science and play swimming, tennis, and marathon.
At  Pahti School they teach human ecology, fine arts, and industrial relations and play chess, badminton, and diving.
At  Dren College they teach social science, languages, and political science and play chess, badminton, and diving.
At  Obscure Tech they teach engineering, architecture, and computer science and play chess, badminton, and diving.

Several prospective students wrote letters of enquiry to each school.  Each student asked about one field of study and one sport in each letter.

Each student wrote once to each school.  Each student asked once about each sport and asked once about each field of study.

Some of the letters were:
Mary enquired about industrial relations and football.
Dick enquired about social science and football.
Helen enquired about political science and football.
Barb enquired about engineering and football.
Mary enquired about languages and hockey.
George enquired about human ecology and lacrosse.
Liz enquired about industrial relations and lacrosse.
Barb enquired about social science and lacrosse.
Carol enquired about political science and lacrosse.
Helen enquired about computer science and lacrosse.
Liz enquired about fine arts and swimming.
George enquired about architecture and swimming.
Barb enquired about human ecology and tennis.
George enquired about industrial relations and tennis.
JOHN enquired about engineering and tennis.
Carol enquired about computer science and tennis.
Helen enquired about fine arts and marathon.
Mary enquired about architecture and marathon.
Helen enquired about human ecology and chess.
JOHN enquired about social science and chess.
Susan enquired about political science and chess.
George enquired about engineering and chess.
Mary enquired about computer science and chess.
George enquired about languages and badminton.
Barb enquired about industrial relations and diving.
Helen enquired about social science and diving.
Mary enquired about political science and diving.
Liz enquired about engineering and diving.

What were the rest of the letters?
EDIT - if you actually picked this up before seeing this note, note corrections in bold, above.
EDIT 2 - and thanks to dkogan for his note, below, pointing out the problem.

Comments

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

Great Cthulhu, that's confusing! An amazing effort, but I am not sure I am up to it!!

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is not really very attractive. It was sort of "because it was there" project.

[dkogan.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, I'm not a fan of Sudoku, so I don't feel compelled to solve it.

To map this to Sudoku, though, don't you need to specify that there is a 9th (unnamed) student, and that every college got asked about each of its relevant topics exactly once?

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Well, I am delighted about the first comment, because I was puzzled about the 2d. I had checked that the puzzle used all nine numbers. This is driven by a number of tables, one of which I screwed up. Thanks. *runs off to do a corrective edit*

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

*puffs, slightly out of breath*

Actually Sudoku involves a lot of repetitive searching, a task I don't enjoy in a puzzle. What I do enjoy is that the puzzling parts remind me of logic puzzles. The effort above, though, doesn't really remind me of any logic puzzles I've done. One of the stepping stones to the above was a spreadsheet I had already put together to do some of the obvious checking in a Sudoku. It basically helps with the uniqueness checking and leaves the subtle parts for the solver.

[dkogan.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.
Yeah, I don't like searching puzzles either. Waste of time.

Then next step for you, of course, is to make a 5-dimensional Sudoku puzzle. Although, since you're starting from 2, you can go easy and just make a 4-dimensional one.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Then next step for you, of course, is to make a 5-dimensional Sudoku puzzle.

<alarmed gleep>

I don't even make 2D ones - I just solve them and translate them into incomprehensible English.

(An earlier, even more unsuccessful effort was to replace all of the numbers with words for someone who liked puzzles but was alarmed at all of the numbers. Never heard back. Of course, I think it was much harder that way. I suspect it was for the victim, too, despite his numerophobia.)

[elfbiter.livejournal.com]

*Crash. Reboot*

Err... Not my forté, apparently...:-)

*staggers off to drain a tea kettle

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

I think this is a good reason to solve sudoku in its native form.

:<)

[ohilya.livejournal.com]

Not having ever played Sudoku (not for a lack of interest, mind you), I am rather without a context.

I know I'm seeing a puzzle, but I don't how to go about solving it.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

First advice: don't :<)

This was to put the sudoku into the form of a logic puzzle, where one then sets out to find a unique solution by eliminating other possibilities. If you want to really try a sudoku, go here (http://www.sudoku.org.uk/daily.asp). Mondays' versions are good to start with.

I see you're in Boston now. Did you go by air or by land, and, if the latter, did you manage any of the ales?

[ohilya.livejournal.com]

I shall take your advice and usher on the side of "not." It would interrupt my grand-schemes of reads, rereads, and videogaming (and I obtained a copy of FF7. Glee).

Am indeed in the city of beans for summer vacation. I have car access and will thus be investigating aforementioned ales; am waiting for a friend from Russia to fly in so that we might go about merrily finding them together. (Two is better than one, and a designated driver is something I will not go without, for I do not take stupid risks.)

I need to go find your post now and write down your recommenations stat.