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EDINBORO — Ask the guy wearing the straw hat how you should spend an autumn day or night, and he’ll tell you to get lost.

And he means it.

Jeff Peiffer (better known locally as the Corn Kernel), along with his wife, Geralyn, and their corny crew, recently opened a Corn Stalking USA corn maze — cut to form a massive picture of Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants, his pet snail Gary and best friend Patrick — next to Wooden Nickel Buffalo Farm just outside of Edinboro. It’s six acres of twists and turns that has visitors searching for 15 hidden game piece stations that each hold a piece of the SpongeBob picture puzzle.

Built this year with the high-tech help of a satellite-fed global positioning system, the maze features an expansive sound system, a 250-seat theater area and puzzle time clocks, as well as rest stations, safety flags and emergency exits for those who may get a little too lost on the roughly hour-and-a-half-long journey.

Having been in the corn maze business for nearly a decade, Peiffer and family recently came to Edinboro from southeastern Pennsylvania, where he’s previously manually created mazes with themes including “Home Sweet Home,” “U.S. States” and “Statue of Liberty.”

His first SpongeBob-themed maze, created in Royersford, “was the best-attended one we’ve had,” he said recently, with more than 14,000 visitors in a single fall season.

Peiffer estimated the maze is one of about 20 in the entire country that employ high-technology in their operations. As far as how that huge picture of the quirky talking sponge and friends was cut from a regular crop of corn, Peiffer smiled and said “I’m not sure I should say.”

He did say the popular children’s channel gave his graphics designer, who “loves SpongeBob,” permission to use any image that’s ever been created from the show.

Peiffer said next year, he’s considering creating a Pittsburgh Steelers-themed maze or, “being on a buffalo farm,” a buffalo-themed maze.

Corn Stalking USA is open through November. For details about the maze’s schedules, rates and more information, visit www.CornStalkingUSA.com.

Ryan Smith can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at rsmith@meadvilletribune.com