HOUSTON, TEXAS—“The MSS (Manitoulin Secondary School) Mustangs Robotics 6865 Manitoulin Metal team has connected the whole Island and has uplifted everyone,” said Helen Siksek, after the team placed as one of six finalists (out of 600 teams) for the FIRST Impact Award at the world robotics championship in Houston, Texas last weekend. Ms. Siksek was one of the many unsung heroes who helped support the MSS team during this incredible season.
Ms. Siksek lives in Kagawong six months of the year and the rest of the year in Dallas, Texas with her husband Floyd. “This is a story that is bigger than all of us. It takes a village to raise a child,” she said. “It if wasn’t for everyone who helped play a part in helping the MSS team, people like Carol Hughes, who helped the team get their passports to go to the championship, the sponsors and those individuals and businesses who helped them raise $32,000 on the GoFundMe page, they wouldn’t have been able to get to the world championship.”
Five days previous, Ms. Siksek knew nothing about robotics. She didn’t know anyone at MSS either, but read about the team in The Expositor. “It was the Gore Bay and Manitoulin thing that made me jump into action to help out,” she added. “I know how people in Gore Bay take care of each other. I’ve watched people like Heather Patterson and Rhea Woods at the church or in the community help to make sandwiches or help at events. It was 100 percent the Gore Bay and Manitoulin helping the community spirit that inspired me to help out the MSS team.”
Husband Floyd was at work in Dallas when Ms. Siksek was sitting at home, reading an article in The Expositor that said the MSS team had won the provincial robotics championships. There was another article the next week. That was the one that reported that reported the Manitoulin Metal team was going to Houston for the world championship. “I nearly fell off my chair!” she said.
She told her husband the kids from MSS were coming to Texas, adding that she too was going to Houston. “I didn’t know what I could do or if I could even help out, but I just felt I needed to be there to help.”
“Floyd asked me, ‘Do you know how much this is going to cost you?’ I just said I have to help serve this team. I’m going to Houston, and I need the car,” said Ms. Siksek.
She sent a message to Yana Bauer, a mentor with the MSS team, and told her she was at the team’s service to help out. “I told Yana I would get a hotel at my own expense and would have a car, so I can run errands if needed and whatever else they need.”
Ms. Siksek had no expectations whatsoever, she told The Expositor. “I’m an artist. I have no idea about engineering, math, science or technology. I had no idea how I would become so involved.”
The team was staying at the Best Western hotel in Houston and Ms. Siksek was fortunate to also get a room there. Ms. Bauer had indicated the team needed costumes to wear at the championships, that every team wears a fun costume in bright colours. “Yana added they were hoping to get yellow bucket hats with bumble bees on them, but a lot of companies wouldn’t deliver them in time, five days, to the team. There were 10,000 kids in the arena at any one time, and by wearing different colours, kids on other teams know who they are. I was able to purchase yellow bucket hats with bumble bees on them.”
Over the next few days Ms. Siksek picked up bristle board and markers for the team and found a cake to celebrate one of the team member’s birthdays during the trip. In fact, Ms. Siksek was able to help every day. She arrived in Houston on Tuesday (April 18) and the team was due to arrive on Wednesday. They needed to get to the competition at the convention centre and didn’t know how to get their luggage back to the hotel. Greg Major, a friend of the Siksek’s who lives and works in Houston but is from Gore Bay, was able to help transport the luggage to the hotel while the team took a shuttle to the competition.
She was concerned about what they would eat once they arrived at the airport. “It costs $17 US for a sandwich,” she explained, so Tuesday night she made sandwiches. “It was at this point I started to see need, too busy to think about all of this,” Ms. Siksek said. “So I went to a Walmart and got all the sandwich stuff and made a mini-kitchen in my hotel room. I made sandwiches every night, with snack bags and a water bottle. The kids were loading onto the bus at the hotel every morning at 6 am for the convention centre and the restaurant in the hotel didn’t open until 6:30 am. Ms. Bauer and April Mayer, a teacher at Charles C. McLean Public School in Gore Bay, helped pay for the snacks.”
She posted pictures of the event and the students online so the team members’ mothers would know they were doing okay, she added. “These kids have been so busy all week and their parents who are on the Island have been trying to contact them, so they had no idea how they were doing. The kids didn’t have wi-fi and it would have cost a lot of money to make international calls.”
For her efforts, the MSS team invited Ms. Siksek to one of the team meetings where she was presented with an official MSS robotics champions team shirt with the word ‘volunteer’ on the back. “They said I was now part of the team.”
“She is awesome,” stated Ms. Bauer. “She was definitely one of the unsung heroes for the team. She was our guardian angel in Houston.” She pointed out the team had many people who supported them through the process, all those sponsors, businesses and people who donated to the GoFundMe fundraising campaign of $32,000 toward the trip to Houston, MP Carol Hughes who helped make sure seven of the 14 members of the team who didn’t have passports a few days before the trip, got them in time, Turners for providing Manitoulin Island t-shirts to wear in Houston, parents and many other people who supported the team.
In return, Ms. Siksek delivered a speech to the team at their meeting. “I said, ‘You guys are creating a foundation, something that is bigger than the team. You are creating a foundation for the future, setting up others for those in the future at MSS to strive to follow in their footsteps. They are trailblazing a path for other MSS students who will look at this team and say, ‘I can do that’ and follow in their footsteps to the world robotics championship.”
Speaking about her own efforts, “I was very happy to help out,” said Ms. Siksek. “Manitoulin Island is a very giving community. It takes a village. This is about the community and people like Heather (Patterson) who helps so much in Gore Bay.”
“These students are so bright, knowledgeable, articulate and mature,” added Ms. Siksek. “The award they won at the robotics world championships (the FIRST Impact Award) is extremely prestigious. All the 594 other teams at the competition will have to qualify for the world championships in 2024 but MSS and the five other teams that won the FIRST Impact Finals award don’t have to qualify. They are already in. These kids are amazing.”
Ms. Siksek has already committed to helping out the MSS team at the 2024 World Championship, which will also take place in Houston.
