It always fascinates me to read about “old tech” being reused in the present day.  The Challenger Relief Map is a 6000 square feet relief map of British Columbia exhibited at the Pacific National Exhibition until 1999.  A piece of the map is now being used to help plan Olympic security for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

This is the first time a portion of the map, spruced up and freshly painted, with small lights to pinpoint individual Olympic venues, has been seen in public since its home at the PNE was demolished in 1997.

The map was made by hand over 7 years by George Challenger.  Each of 986,000 plywood pieces was cut by hand and glued together to form the map.  Quite an amazing project.