Whiz Kids With a Vision of the Future : Students: State’s $40,000 annual science fair draws 807 entrants with projects ranging from ‘H-H-H-Humpty Dumpty, an Egg De Laid’ to ‘How Light Affects Brine Shrimp.’

Judging by the spiral notebook that Larry Horwitz was carrying under his arm Tuesday, there is a science to being a fair judge at a science fair.

Particularly when you’re helping pick the winners of $40,000 in cash prizes--a purse that lured the largest crowd of students ever to the 36-year-old California State Science Fair.

You need patience and a sense of humor. And a system.

“I sat down last night and figured it out,” Horwitz explained, flipping his notebook to a page where a hand-drawn graph was printed in ballpoint pen. “Look, you can see it here. If I have 18 entries and 12 judges, this shows how each entry can be judged five times, 12 minutes each.”

Horwitz is a 43-year-old Long Beach engineer who supervised the evaluation of the junior high group-project category. He and his helpers had three hours to study the 18 entries, interview the 36 partners who had constructed them and decide on the winners.

In all, 332 volunteer judges were prowling the display aisles on the floor of the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Waiting anxiously were 807 junior and senior high school students from across the state. They were ready to explain 752 experiments that ranged from “How Light Affects Brine Shrimp” to “Tetracycline Reactions of Ultraviolet-Mutated Staphloccus Epidermidis.”

The unexpectedly heavy turnout of student entries sent judging coordinator Ed Ruth, an engineer with Aerospace Corp., scrambling for judges--even to the point of sending out an E-mail plea for volunteers through computer networks.

The faltering defense industry and poor economy haven’t deterred teen-agers, explained fair chairman Chris Gould, a USC physics professor.

“These kids have a futurist view. When they graduate, the job market will have turned round and they’ll be poised at the exact right time to take advantage of the boom,” Gould predicted.

Contest judges tried to make certain students took advantage of Tuesday’s fair too.

“This is these kids’ 15 minutes in the sun so far in their lives,” Horwitz said. “We tell them not to be nervous. These guys are all winners already. Nobody here is a loser.”

Horwitz kept that in mind as he worked the aisle, joking with students and complimenting them on their work. He got each to explain how the experiment had been done and what it had accomplished.

He gently prodded some into discussing ways their projects could have been improved.

“There are a couple so far that are so far off base. But the fellows are so enthusiastic. They are from farming communities--they’re already Einsteins. So we say, ‘Why not study it this way next time?’ instead of telling them they did it wrong.”

Horwitz lingered in front of the folding display that was set up by 13-year-old Kristie Kerwin of Brisbane and classmate Ann Tham, 14, of Daly City. Their project, called “H-H-H-Humpty Dumpty, an Egg De Laid,” explored how the brain handles sensory overload.

Kristie explained that subjects recited the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme into a tape recorder that played back their words one-fifth of a second later. The subjects listened to the tape delay through headphones.

Ann whipped out a blue and red chart labeled “Hesitations Graph.” It showed a marked drop-off in concentration when the rhyme reciters heard their tape-delayed voices. “They were listening to themselves instead of paying attention to what they were saying.” Kristie said.

Horwitz laughed heartily when the girls played him a tape recording of their friends stumbling over the Humpty Dumpty words and then giggling hysterically as their voices unexpectedly echoed back at them.

Other projects were much more elaborate. “There’s a girl over there studying laser photoablation of the cornea and doing things that 80% of the ophthalmologists in this country don’t understand,” Horwitz whispered.

He ought to know. Horwitz, an inventor with 240 patents of his own, is now designing a visual-reality system that could eventually be used in the treatment of eye disease.

As it turned out, the eye disorder diagnosis project that Horwitz admired eventually captured two of the fair’s top prizes. Julie Gutmark, who turns 17 on Friday, won a total of $6,000 for winning senior project of the year and science fair student of the year. She lives in Ridgecrest in Kern County and attends Sherman E. Burroughs High School.

Other winners included 7th-grader Ben Froke of Carmel, who won $500 for having the junior high project of the year, and Michelle Lieux of John North High School in Riverside, who won $5,000 for being teacher of the year.

Humpty Dumpty won second place and $125 for Kristie and Ann in their category.