NASA has announced the victors in the 17th annual Great Moonbuggy Race: The team representing the University of Puerto Rico’s Humacao Campus took first place in the college division, while the team from the Fajardo Vocational High School of Humacao finished second place in the high school division.

The team representing the International Space Education Institute of Leipzig, Germany, won the high school division.

The winning teams competed with more than 70 teams from 18 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Germany, India and Romania. More than 600 drivers, engineers and mechanics — all students — were taking part in the annual match-up of wits and wheels at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center from April 9-10 in Huntsville, Ala.

The race is organized by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. It challenges students to design, build and race lightweight, human-powered buggies that tackle many of the same engineering challenges dealt with by Apollo-era lunar rover developers at the Marshall Center in the late 1960s.

The University of Puerto Rico in Humacao — the only school in the world to enter a moonbuggy in every race since the event was founded in 1994 — won the second-place prize in 2009, and finally took home first place in this, their 17th appearance.

The winning teams posted the fastest vehicle assembly and race times in their divisions and received the fewest on-course penalties. The International Space Education Institute finished the roughly half-mile course — twisting curves, treacherous gravel pits and other obstacles simulating lunar surface conditions — in just 3 minutes 37 seconds. The University of Puerto Rico at Humacao posted a time of 4 minutes 18 seconds.

Finishing in second place this year in the high school division was Fajardo Vocational High School of Humacao, which entered the competition for the first time in 2009.

“Each year, NASA’s Great Moonbuggy Race clearly demonstrates the popularity, worldwide reach and intrinsic value of the agency’s education initiatives,” said Tammy Rowan, manager of the Marshall Center’s Academic Affairs Office, which organizes the race. “It’s our goal to augment and enrich the classroom experience, and inspire a new generation of scientists, engineers and explorers to carry on NASA’s mission of discovery throughout our solar system and deliver untold benefits back home on Earth.”

The moonbuggy race is inspired by the original lunar rover, first piloted across the moon’s surface in the early 1970s during the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions. The first race, held in 1994, commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. At the time, the event was only open to college teams, and eight participated. Two years later, the event was expanded to include high school teams.