Charter High School of the Arts teacher receives $2,500 grant

VAN NUYS, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A high school robotics team in Van Nuys will benefit from their teacher receiving a $2,500 grant from Farmers Insurance's Thank America's Teachers program.

Students in Mark Lovasz's robotics class at Charter High School of the Arts said his classroom has become a second home to them.

"It's definitely shown me that with enough determination anything is really possible," senior Shady Abi-Faraj said.

"It actually helped me be more confident in what I want to do because I want to major in computer science," senior Erica Phillips explained.

The robotics team has already won two world championships and Lovasz said every penny of the grant could be put to good use.

"Every penny counts. This is really going to help us out a lot," Lovasz said. "The kids have been wanting a CNC machine for a while and I think we'll finally be able to get it."

"With a CNC machine we can cut a lot more accurate cuts, making them perfectly straight, perfectly identical to the other side making everything a lot easier and simpler," Shady explained. "It also allows some of us to learn things like 3D modeling."

"The money can really be parlayed into something special with extra research and computers and all those kinds of things," Farmers Insurance Agent Burton Harris said.