Question: Checkboxes & Variables

I am trying to create a form with checkboxes where individuals can select as many checkboxes as they wish and get results depending on what they checked. (I.E., If a person selects a checkbox marked "ball" and a checkbox marked "spike" then the next page will display results that match either "ball" or "spike".) The problem is that I cannot give each individual checkbox its own specific name because then I would have to create a loop to see which variables have been given a value, which would be too time intensive since the number of checkboxes available would be around 20. Now, since every checkbox has the same name, with each clicking of a new checkbox it overwrites the previous value that was assigned to that variable (duh). I am wondering if there is a way to append the checkbox values to the variable or if there is possibly some easier way to do this that I am missing. thanks, Daniel Murillo damurillo@amherst.edu