While others aim to spam Google Maps, Melanie Coles is instead using the popular online mapping application to graduate from school, relying on satellite imaging technology for her final project at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Dubbed "Where on Earth is Waldo", Coles has adopted the "go-big-or-go-home" attitude and has created a massive sixteen-meter version of the normally one-centimeter-tall Waldo on giant sheets of vinyl using the classic Renaissance grid method. To ensure her novelty-sized Waldo doesn't get blown away by our monsoon-like weather systems, Coles enlisted her friends for a little slave labour, "borrowing" sand from a local beach to fill small black sand bags for the outline of Waldo's lanky figure.

Her primary goal is to capture Waldo on Google Maps, so that geeks everywhere with access to the internet can find Waldo on the grandest scale possible... Earth. She figures that Vancouver's due for a satellite image refresh pretty damn soon, since it hasn't had one in the last two-and-a-half years, and new photos are taken every three years at most. I wonder how long it will be before someone figures they can do the same thing with a gargantuan phallic symbol...

Think you can figure out what rooftop Waldo's on? Clues can be found in the picture below and on her site.

Thanks to Carolyn Coles for the tip. Photos by 1-800-AIREELZ.COM and Emiliano Sepulveda.