Winning A Stunning Science Project

Dan's experiment involved programming a computer to "make choices and solve problems where common sense is required," he said regarding his Earth Science Projects. He spent one month planning his computer program, two weeks writing it and then two and a half months working out the little errors in the system. He was able to do Earth Science Projects at home on his family's computer.

"It was fun doing it. I don't care if I won," he said early Sunday, before learning that he indeed was an international winner. "The winning will come if you work hard and do a good project. I like the sense of competition that comes with (the fair)"

The third international winner was Charlie Chen, a freshman at Whitney Young Magnet High School, whose experiment was titled "C-Reactive Protein in Acute Phase Plasma." Charlie's research, done at Rush's immunology laboratories, launched a different research direction for the study of C-Reactive protein, which Charlie described as a protein of unknown function that may have been rendered unnecessary through the evolutionary process.

Teachers at a Carlsbad Catholic school and a drunk-driving watchdog group may have heaped praise on eighth-grader Andy Rock's science experiment, but officials of the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair decided to disqualify it.

The 13-year-old student at St. Patrick's Catholic School had hoped to show the effect of alcohol on the reaction time of adults, using a medium to which teen-agers can relate: a Nintendo video game. The project measured the response times of 30 adults, ages 35 to 40, who played the simulated-driving game. Each subject played four times, sober, and their performance was recorded.

The subjects, all friends of the La Costa teen-ager's family, were then given a drink of alcohol every 15 minutes, playing a game between each of the four drinks. The results showed that, after the second drink, the subjects' scores decreased substantially. "The kids thought it was pretty funny that the adults were doing so bad on a car game," Andy said, adding that most kids who play the game consider it "pretty easy."

"Nintendo being so popular with the kids right now, I think the experiment had more meaning to the kids and to him," eighth-grade science teacher Peggy Coughlin said.

After winning first place at the school's science fair, Andy's project was disqualified at the Diocesan Science Fair in February by the Greater San Diego Management Committee, a screening committee of the San Diego Science and Engineering Fair, which was held in April.