BGM's Museum

Published on August 19, 2024

An Update on my Academic Life

In this post I will present all the recent events that have taken place in my academic life during the last several months. I know I have talked about it briefly online before, but I felt it would be appropriate to give proper context of where I am today.

Well, let’s begin by talking about where I am in life at the moment. For starters, I recently graduated from university back in February. I got my Bachelor’s in Computing and Informatics degree with a thesis on (you guessed it) Re-Volt!. For real now though, I really did write my thesis on a topic related to RV. Translated to english, my work’s title reads “Development of a Web Application for the Re-Volt America Community”.

Re-Volt America (RVA) was the first online Re-Volt community I joined back when I discovered this game had an online scene at all. As I started playing in this community, I begun noticing many things about it that could be improved, technically speaking. Simple things like content packs distribution, the calculation of race points with a desktop application, a website for the community, and the whole other story that would be automating all the development cycle of these processes.

I was in my early second year of college when all of this was happening, during the pandemic, so I had free time on my hands, and therefore I decided to take upon the task of modernising RVA and bringing it to the high standards where it sits today in terms of software. It was here when I started toying around with the idea of creating a website for the community, a place where we would display key information for players, our racing tracks, cars, downloads, player statistics, you name it. Here’s a picture taken at my thesis presentation:


You may also find a copy my full thesis here. It is written in Spanish, but I figured that just being able to scroll around and see some pictures of RV would get some of you to smile haha.

After that day I officially became an engineer (hurray!), but it wasn’t until May that I officially received my diploma at the ceremony held for the class of 2024.

To my surprise, that day I also received a prize for academic excellence called “University Award”. It’s a prize awarded based on academic merit to a single student of each year’s promotion. I was astonished really. Back in high school I never really received any real prizes or anything … I guess following my passion ended up paying off in the end! The award came with a book signed by the university rector, a nicely packaged glass plaque, and last but not least: a full scholarship to course the ENTIRETY of a Master’s or Doctorate program!. I have around 5 years to decide what I would like to do with this benefit so I’m still thinking … but it’s a great opportunity nonetheless! Here’s a picture of the plaque:


Quickly after all of that happened, I was accepted into the Master’s program I had already applied to back in March: the Master’s in Computer Science program at my university.

Because I had no idea I would be selected for the university award, I had already applied to a different scholarship with added benefits too, which I ended up getting as well!! So in summary, I was able to continue my studies for free, with added benefits, and because the Master’s program lasts 2 years, I will still have 3 years to decide what I want to do with the prize.

So there it is! Right now I’m coursing the second semester of my Master’s program, conducting research on topics related to multiplayer online games, specifically racing games!. So yeah, you may have already guessed it by now .. I intend to use my time in the program to dive deep into researching lag management in multiplayer games. Whether it be techniques on how to produce a better experience for online racing games, or the appliances these techniques may have in state of the art implementations, that’s all I ultimately intend to encompass with my research.

Additionally, it goes without saying that I will always have RVGL in mind during this journey, so that’s the line tying these two things together. This is how I like to manage my academic life in general: always trying to mix personal interest with a broader good.

If you’re interested in seeing the early steps of my research, I have written a systematic review on Dead Reckoning. Although the original document is written in Spanish, I also took the freedom to translate it to English so that everyone can read it.

You may download the documents here:

That’s what I have to say for now. See you all around!