Space and robotics teams from post-secondary institutions, and their rovers, came to the Drumheller Valley to participate in the Canadian International Rover Challenge (CIRC) between Friday, August 13 and Monday, August 16.

This year will mark the fourth summer the CIRC was hosted in Drumheller, following continued growth since its inception in 2017 at Midland Provincial Park; no event was held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The 2021 event will be quite small, with four teams attending,” Kyle Epp with the CIRC Organizing Committee tells the Mail. “COVID restrictions have prevented many teams from preparing for the competition over the last year, and border restrictions prevent most of our international teams from competing this year.”

Despite fewer competitors, Epp notes with the Canada-U.S. border opening to vaccinated travellers, they are expecting one American team to be in attendance.

CIRC challenges teams to design and build a rover-a vehicle for exploring the surface of a planet or moon-to compete in a total of five tasks with both day and night components, across multiple locations throughout the Drumheller Valley.

Some of the challenges the rovers faced included navigating eight GPS locations through increasingly difficult terrain, and a simulated search and rescue mission.

On Monday, August 16 the teams and their rovers finished up the weekend competition with the Rovelympics, which included some fun tasks for the teams and rovers, such as a break dancing competition.

An audit of the Town of Drumheller Flood Mitigation Project’s financials has been completed, and while there were some deficiencies, there was no evidence of impropriety.
Aiden Macdonald of Ascend LLP presented the audited statement of expenditures of the Flood Mitigation program. This report encompasses the project from its inception in mid-2019 until December 31, 2020.
“We are overall quite happy with how the financials look,” he stated in his presentation to council on July 26.
As of December 31, 2020, the total expenditures of the Flood Mitigation Project were $7,567,084. Total expenditures for professional services came to $491,997, and communications and engagement came to $176,678.
Under project expense, $946,631 was expended on engineering and $910,413 for project management. Total project expenses came to $2,386,437.
Under capital costs, $3,942,742 was spent on properties acquired, and $123,946 was expended on land agent services.
Macdonald said overall they found the financials in good order. They were asked to observe the purchasing policy, approvals, and financial controls, view the timeliness of the accounts payable transactions, review the conditions of the grants and the expenditures against the grants, and review the investment and cash flow strategies.
“It is worth noting for yourselves and for the public these findings do relate to the management work done by Darwin Durnie and his consulting corporation who are no longer in charge of the project and may not, and in some cases, no longer reflective of the status of the project,” he said.
He explained for purchasing policy approvals and financial controls, adequate policies did exist and in general, were followed.
“There were some issues noted in the public about whether the RFP (request for proposal) and tendering process done by the program were adequate, and we did find deficiencies in that area. There were in many instances they were unable to recover documentation that those procedures were followed correctly, and we are aware in many cases they were not followed correctly,” he said.
The organization was delivering its payable on a timely basis, however, there were some weaknesses found.
There were no major concerns found in grant reporting, and any issues can be remediated.
It was also noted the flood mitigation did not have a formal investment and cash flow strategy.
“That is not consistent with what we were expecting and hoping for. It has not yet posed a significant problem this early in the project. There is money there to continue operating, however, we would like to see that developed in the future.”
Councillor Jay Garbutt confirmed with Macdonald the audit did not identify any material misstatement, misappropriation, or misconduct.
“Within the context of our audit we are not able to find any issues, nothing indicating deliberate malfeasance, but more sloppiness or not following procedure, focusing on getting the job done,” said Macdonald.