The diversity of participants in the University of Utah Science and Engineering Fair is impressive — from public to private schools, and from charter schools to home schools — but also daunting for the judges of the annual event, now held at the Crocker Science Center. Even so, they were up to the challenge this year.

What’s more is that the 169 volunteer judges this year seemed to get as much out of the experience as did the 722 students, representing grades 5-12. These dedicated volunteers are looking far beyond the stereotypical Play-Doh volcano (not that there’s anything wrong with witnessing a propulsive reaction between vinegar and baking soda . . . which is very cool . . . or is that “hot”?)

We asked four of the judges who participated this year in the three-day event to tell us what it’s like to weave through rooms full of smiling, nervous, well-dressed students and their posters and displays on the University of Utah campus. While the finalists who qualified for the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair to be staged in Columbus, Ohio this May were few, every solitary participant, whether age ten or getting ready to vote in the next election, came away from the fair enriched by the experience and maybe even ready to become a scientist or engineer someday.

The judges were there to help facilitate that.

Sydney Brooksby

Credit: Cindy Nordstrom

"As a new USEF judge, I was truly amazed by the intelligence and creativity of the young competitors. The level of innovation stemming from these young minds was nothing short of inspiring. I experienced a variety of projects with precise data collection/analysis, deep critical thinking, and techniques beyond what I even knew existed, when I was their ages! Not only did I have the honor of witnessing youthful genius, but I was in the midst of truly passionate kids and young adults.

"My favorite project was a young girl in the elementary division studying heritable traits in genetics. As I am studying genetic engineering, I asked her what she wanted to grow up to be. She excitedly replied, "I love genetics so much! I want to be a geneticist so I can save lives!"

"I have no doubt that this young girl, as well as her fellow competitors, will dig their hands deeper into the wonderous inquiry that science offers us. I cannot wait for next year's USEF competition, to continue to experience these amazing competitors' contributions to the STEM field!"

Sally Russell

Credit: Cindy Nordstrom

"Judging at the Utah Science and Engineering Fair has been so rewarding — although sometimes intimidating.  I have talked to some students that just blow me away with how much work they have put into their project and how incredibly knowledgeable and prepared they are. Some are so much smarter than I am at that moment.  It fills me with hope for our future.

I started judging at USEF six years ago. I am challenged at times to give positive feedback but always try to leave all of those  I talk with knowing that I appreciate the work they did, and for some of them, that I learned more from them than they realize.

"But mostly I want to leave them knowing that they should be proud of the work they did.  Of course, not all projects are high caliber, but I always ask the student, 'what did you learn doing this?' And I often get 'I learned how to do research' or 'found out that I could have a hypothesis that was totally wrong and still learn something!'  I think that’s one of the points of this whole experience.

"My first year at USEF I met a young lady, a high school senior who had become interested in working on a cure for breast cancer because of personal family health issues and had heard about plants in the Far East that were being used as a treatment.  her knowledge of these plants and what she needed to do with them was so deep that I could not think of suggestions on how to improve her project or steps she could take that would be of help to her.  Since then I have seen other young men and women like her a — fully immersed in the learning process and working so hard to prove (or disprove) their hypothesis.  A study this year that was so impressive was done by a young man who designed a study focused on whether using moral foundations as a basis would be a way to combat the spread of misinformation. This was so well done, and so well researched that I once again could only offer encouragement and suggestions on process but certainly none on content or presentation.

"For many young people, doing a project doesn’t always turn out the way they thought but learning happens anyway.  They won’t all end up being scientists, but hopefully they will appreciate the scientific process and be better able to look at research they hear about in the future and determine to some degree whether there was validity and meaning in that study.

"When I go home from USEF I have the feeling that at least parts of our world will be better in the future because of these young people and the experience of being at the fair."

Rajeev Balasubramonian

Credit: Todd Anderson

"I have judged at USEF for over 15 years, and I have found that the 5^th and 6^th graders are especially mind-blowing in their curiosity and innocence. They often use the opportunity to delve into things that are genuinely interesting to them — speed of race-cars, impact of phone use and music. This year, in the waning minutes of judging, I ran into a kid that assessed the impact of yarn type on a Spiderman web-shooter, which is a device he made with his parents. It was a simple spring-loaded magnet gun with yarn attached (use your imagination to fill in the details ). He envisions that with the right suction cups, this will help people with mobility issues. (I think every cool grandparent is going to need a Spiderman web shooter!)

"A number of students/projects receive mentoring from teachers/researchers and are more polished. I love it when students use science fair to go in depth on an extra-curricular topic for months – those end up being the best projects and the most fun interviews. Some of the high school projects are impressive enough to be fledgling undergraduate theses. Many students write their first meaningful computer programs as part of their USEF experience. A couple of students in 2023 wrote an impressive computer system to interpret American Sign Language — one of them studies at the U and the other is at Yale.

"Many projects do not receive mentoring from experts, but are equally impressive in their ingenuity. Last year, a student developed a custom-made football helmet that could accommodate his hearing aid — the kid saw a legitimate problem in his life and he solved it, epitomizing the spirit of science and engineering fairs!"

Paul Stach

Credit: Todd Anderson

"I have judged USEF during most years since 2015, and it’s challenging for me to distinguish the science fair from Christmas!  As a science and tech generalist, I keep up with the hot topics and discoveries in all fields, and I’m very interested to take a sample look through the lens of what topics the kids are finding to be interesting, worthwhile and having potential for exciting innovation.

I’ve seen many naturally-talented kids from disadvantaged families who were sincerely applying themselves in trying to solve humanity’s problems — such as how to recapture excess carbon from the atmosphere — for the good of all people in the world.  These students didn’t always have all the resources they needed, and sometimes the exact best resources would not be safe for kids and would require specialized careful expert handling — but the kids fully understood their reference research papers which they were attempting to build from — and that understanding will serve to carry them still further when they are ready.

"As the old song said, 'your dreams were your ticket out' — but I would change that 'out' to something else like 'up' or 'to the next big thing.'  The science fair can be 'the thing that gets you to the thing.

"Interacting with the talent and potential of the students is so uplifting, and having the chance to inspire them and see their own recognition of their learning — it’s such an uplift that you can’t feel your feet touching the ground afterward.

"As the late American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator Carl Sagan once said, 'All the science and technology we have today is the result of a long, slow struggle, at great personal cost to the participants. This is an important reflection, and it's a communal activity that has yielded so many benefits and understanding to humankind.'

"I think USEF is a part of that great “communal activity.”