During the day NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California builds robots fit for space, but after hours they put their brainpower together for something a bit more rudimentary - pumpkin carving.
Yes, for the past seven years during the Halloween season these brainiacs have competed in an 'unofficial' jack-o-lantern carving contest, which NASA mechanical engineer Mike Meacham said gives them a chance to let out some creativity and bond. "I don't think, even at the time, they appreciated just how seriously our engineers were going to take it," he said about the first Halloween pumpkin contest - and the evidence is clear. From a guitar player to Charlie Brown on mars, these pumpkin ideas were out of this world.
The only limits were their imaginations, with three simple rules: no planning, carving or competing during work hours. "They do their funny pumpkin carvings in their own time," said Meacham, who's co-running the competition this year. "They go home, use their own resources, plan it out, and all we give them is a pumpkin."
While there is no prize (other than bragging rights) these competitors brought their carving game to another universe. To see these elaborate jack-o-lantern faces scroll down below! Official voting for the competition may be over, but you can still vote for your favorite pumpkin with us!
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Mike Wazowski
RIP
Martian Sample Return Mission
Flip Switch Lights On
E.T.
Nasa Pumpkin
Nasa Pumpkin
Nasa Pumpkin
Nasa Pumpkin
Coco - Día De Los Muertos Suite
A Team
Nasa Pumpkin
The Harvest
War Of The Worlds
PAC - MAN
Baby Shark
NOOOOOOOOOO!!! That will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
Load More Replies...Does anyone know that game where there are fish spinning in a circle and you have a magnet fishing pole and you try and catch as many fish as you can?
Go fish is a card game the one you are thinking about is "Let's Go Fishing" :-)
Load More Replies...Do do do do do do do...I immediately starting singing this song...I have a three year old lol
Giant Meteor
Cookie Monster
I feel like I would have stolen one of the cookies as I walked by... I’m such a horrible person lol.
"Mars Samples Are Like A Box Of Chocolates. You Never Know What You're Gonna Get"
InSight
Nasa Pumpkin
Polishing The Cannonball
An inside joke. It’s called the “Polish the Cannonball Syndrome.” This is a malady that affects organizations where design of new products is one of the mainstays of the business Since business today is all about “time to market,” the lower the time to get a new product to market can make all the difference in beating the competition. The “Polish the Cannonball Syndrome” adds a new dimension to why projects take longer than planned. It revolves around the fact that engineering will continue to tweak a product design despite it already meeting the basic requirements for functionality. This tweaking includes adding features, with sometimes little value, or making irrelevant improvements that don’t affect product functionality. Thus extending the time until the end product is released.
Charlie Brown
Look Inside
Duh... There Is Water On Mars!
Stranger Things
Space Force
JPL. Caltech EDU
Nasa Pumpkin
Battle Pumpkins
Signs Of Life
Day Of The Dead: Celebrating The Cassini Mission
Nasa Pumpkin
Happy Birthday
Leonard
Nasa Pumpkin
Nasa Pumpkin
Revenge Of The Pumpkins
Nasa Pumpkin
Ghosts Of Pumpkins Past
Pumpkin Estimate Generator Comparison
Nasa Pumpkin
This is the reason why, NASA and JPL are now outsourcing jobs to Space X, etc... (If someone can explain this - please do). I see Global Cooling coming?
Meet The Spec
Jerry The Pumpkin
Congratsligo
I think someone has blue balls that turned black... unable to impact Mother Earth.
Coco
War Of The Worlds
Building Partnerships Piece By Piece
Banksy
Ziggy Starshade
Siemens Nx Demo: Million Dollar Pumpkin
Mars Waste Management
Nasa Pumpkin
Out Of Sight
From Squash world, we come in peace. Take us to the Great Pumpkin.
Nasa Pumpkin
We Come In Proper Containment
Starshade Pumpkin Launch Restraint And Unfurling System (Plus)
Class "H" Mission
Guess The Mass
Black Hole
Operation Franko Drop
Nasa Halloween Pumpkin
"Mars Samples Are Like A Box Of Chocolates. You Never Know What You're Gonna Get"
So original and PC... How about Nasa predicting what they might find? Water and Life until recently? Oh that's new...
Winter Is Not Coming
These are wonderful. There must be a large area in the building for all these to be displayed, especially the scenic ones. LOVE THESE!
I wanna go play with the NASA guys.... where do I send my application ? 😊
Any NASA fans can join a citizen scientist posse and help out with data that needs classifying. I specialise as Gravity Spy and am almost level five now. I look at gravitational events and use a field guide to name each image. There's all kinds of projects and the researchers super appreciate any help. I helped map areas of Mars which was a cool one. Anyway :) If you're keen to go planet hunting or searching for nebula then have a look at the website zooniverse.org Teachers can find projects suitable for all ages. Oh and the best part ... You get your name on the research papers if you find any new cosmic events. We found the first binary neutron star last year!!!
Just think what these people could do with all that talent, I bet they could build a rocket that could send a probe to Mars.
These are wonderful. There must be a large area in the building for all these to be displayed, especially the scenic ones. LOVE THESE!
I wanna go play with the NASA guys.... where do I send my application ? 😊
Any NASA fans can join a citizen scientist posse and help out with data that needs classifying. I specialise as Gravity Spy and am almost level five now. I look at gravitational events and use a field guide to name each image. There's all kinds of projects and the researchers super appreciate any help. I helped map areas of Mars which was a cool one. Anyway :) If you're keen to go planet hunting or searching for nebula then have a look at the website zooniverse.org Teachers can find projects suitable for all ages. Oh and the best part ... You get your name on the research papers if you find any new cosmic events. We found the first binary neutron star last year!!!
Just think what these people could do with all that talent, I bet they could build a rocket that could send a probe to Mars.