PRAIRIE DU SAC, Wis. -- Engineering students from the all over the eastern U.S. and Venezuela flocked to the Sauk Prairie Airport this weekend for the 25th Annual Human Powered Vehicle Challenge.

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The challenge is about combining fuel efficient engineering with practical use, WISC-TV reported.

"We try and make it a little life-like so it's just as you would with your car except you take your bicycle and you go on in and pick up what you need and head out," said University of Wisconsin-Madison HPVC Team member Nicole Zabel.

Zabel said human-powered-vehicles go beyond the average bicycle, but it's not always easy riding.

"It's a lot more complicated than it looks," said UW team member Rebecca Hager. "There are always problems. There's always tweaking going on during competition, like we're working on right now, so it's always an ongoing process."

With gas prices and our carbon footprint on the rise, engineers think human-powered-vehicles could one day be an earth and budget friendly way to travel.

This weekend, 24 cars competed in various races in both speed and design competitions. Results aren't available yet.

Last year, the UW-Madison team took home the top prize for their design of a hand-powered-vehicle.