These Halloween pumpkins carved by NASA engineers are out of this world

Most of us would come at a Halloween pumpkin simply with a sharp knife and a will to succeed. Others would come equipped with NASA-level engineering skills.

Every year, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California gather for the ultimate pumpkin carving contest. This year's competition went down on Monday, and guys, the engineers brought it.

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It's been a team-bonding tradition for seven years, and sees JPL engineers taking an hour break from building tools which enable us to explore the universe for a good old fashioned jack-o'-lantern carving competition. 

The rules: No carving is allowed during work hours. The prize: Bragging rights.

"I don't think, even at the time, they appreciated just how seriously our engineers were going to take it," NASA mechanical engineer Mike Meacham said of the first ever pumpkin carving contest.

"They do it all in their own time," he added. "They go home, use their own resources, plan it out, and all we give them is a pumpkin."

Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

Previous years have seen pumpkins transformed into everything from lit-up UFOs to hovering Frankensteins, spinning carnival rides to working robotic arms. 

And this year? The game was on.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Look, there's a pumpkin phoning home:

Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

Sometimes the pumpkins were at war with each other.

Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

There's Charlie Brown hanging out with the Mars Rover:

Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

Here's a moving pumpkin musician you can join for a spooky tune or two:

And a certain cookie-loving pumpkin monster:

Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

These pumpkins are friends, not food:

Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

An entire diorama featuring Jupiter, a pirate ship, and the highly badass moon of Europa:

Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

Want to give it a go? NASA has a bunch of tips for folks who want to make their own. Surprisingly, it's not rocket science.

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