NEW: UAH wins first place in college division in NASA’s 30th Human Exploration Rover Challenge

NASA has announced the winners of the 30th Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) winners. The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) is one of the many winners selected across the country and around the globe. More than 600 students spanning across 72 teams participated this year.

HERC, the annual engineering competition, took place April 19 and 20 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

Read on to learn more about what the challenge entailed and what it means for UAH to win.

What is the HERC?

The HERC is one of NASA’s longest-standing challenges, encouraging research and development of new technologies to assist in future space travel. The competition itself is an engineering design challenge meant to involve students from all over the world in the next steps to space exploration.

“The primary objective of HERC is for teams of students to design, develop, build, and test human-powered rovers capable of traversing challenging terrain and a task tool for completion of various mission tasks.”

About HERC / nasa.gov

Teams that applied can earn points in various ways: successfully completing design reviews, designing and creating a rover that meets the criteria and successfully completing course obstacles and mission tasks. Over the course of the project year, the team that accumulates the most points wins in their respective division.

UAH is one of many winners chosen around the world

UAH won first place in the college/university division, followed by Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina. UAH also won the Project Review Award for the college/university division.

UAH stands alongside several impressive winners at NASA’s 30th HERC, including those from the following locations:

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