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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.

SEE ALSO: Creepy anglerfish jack-o'-lantern takes pumpkin carving to a whole new level

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."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

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

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