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Sunday, April 3, 2011

Puerto Rico teams take top awards in the NASA 2011 Great Moonbuggy Race

NASA has announced the winners of the 18th annual NASA Great Moonbuggy Race -- and it's Puerto Rico's year. Teams representing Teodoro Aguilar Mora Vocational High School of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, snared the top two berths in the high school division; and, for the second straight year, the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao held off all comers to win the college division. The NASA competition challenges students around the world to build and race lightweight, human-powered buggies -- demonstrating the same innovation and can-do spirit that put the first Apollo-era lunar rover on the moon four decades ago.

More than 70 teams from 22 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Germany, India and Russia took part in the race, which encourages young people to reach for new heights in science, technology, engineering and math, and pursue careers in technical fields that will benefit NASA, the nation and all humankind,[Photos].

Held April 1-2 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, the event is organized by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. It challenges students to tackle many of the same engineering challenges dealt with by Apollo-era lunar rover developers at the Marshall Center in the late 1960s.

This year's event celebrated the 40th anniversary of that feat, which culminated in the first use of a crewed lunar rover in July 1971. More from NASA Marshall.

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