With excitement and nervous anticipation in the air, some of Utah's brightest minds competed for $10,000 and scholarships to several universities. And none of the competitors have graduated from high school.

"This gets better every year," said Lisa Clarke, manager in charge of organizing the Central Utah Science and Engineering Fair host last week by BYU. "The level of the students' projects deepens."

About 800 students from the Alpine, Jordan, Nebo, Provo and Wasatch school districts participated in the fair. In order to be invited, students had to do well in science fairs at their school and district levels.

The contest lasted all week, starting with projects from elementary school children and progressing through high school students. The science fair concluded Thursday, and the awards were presented that evening at Provo High School.

Clarke said the students who made it to the fair came from a pool of about 100,000 potential contestants.

"A lot of these students are doing grad-level work," Clarke said. "This is a good jump-off point for them for their futures."

Clarke said the fair helps to change students and give them recognition and confidence in their academic achievements. She recalled an event from the fair five years ago, where a fifth-grade student won a scholarship to the College of Eastern Utah. After winning, his mother came up to Clarke in tears, saying that her son had never had a good academic experience before the fair.

"So many athletes are recognized for being good athletes, but not as many students are recognized for being good students," Clarke said. "This is a good chance for that."

Students competing at the top level of the fair invested a lot of time and resources into their projects.

Josh Sheetz, for example, worked for about a year and a half on his project to separate hydrogen from water using solar energy.

"After my school science fair, I thought I would have a real leg up," said Sheetz, a senior at Springville High School. "Seeing all these other projects, I got a little bit nervous."

His project, which cost an estimated $1,500, was sponsored in part by his school.

"We all make each other compete at our best," said Trinity Romney, a high school sophomore competing in the fair for the fourth consecutive year.

Her project dealt with "bending light," for which she studied the most efficient method to get light signals to change direction for use in computer technology.

Romney said she had invested hundreds of hours in her project over three years leading up to the fair.

"I'm always anxious before the awards," Romney said.

The prizes being offered this year included full-ride scholarships to BYU, UVSC and the College of Eastern Utah, as well as a $10,000 prize from Symantec for the best software-based project. In addition, the winners of this contest are given a chance to go on and compete in the International Science and Engineering Fair, where hundreds of thousands of dollars are offered to the contest winners.

Winners of the fair and further information on awards given can be found online at cusef.byu.edu.

Copyright Brigham Young University 2 Apr 2008