[Marc P.]

Historically, the audio cues have never been an "official" marker of any sort of change in game state. As far back as I can remember, teams have always been told "Do not rely on the sounds, always go by the clock."

For the autonomous -> teleop transition, I've always heard "when the clock hits 0, not when you hear the ding ding ding" for drivers to step over the starting line.

This year it is especially easy to tell game states based on the colors in the tower base. Towards end game, flashing yellow = get ready but do not deploy. Once the tower goes solid red/blue, you're safe.

The audio cues tend to be very inconsistent, depending on the DJ and what sort of equipment they are using. Sometimes there is a noticeable delay between the game clock and sound effects, sometimes sounds don't play at all, sometimes they're drowned out by music, sometimes sounds in the music itself sound like game sounds and confuse them.

I can understand some jittery drivers itching to be the first to deploy instinctively triggering on the sound effect at 15 seconds, but I see it more as the "Ready, set" before the "go." It'll take some driver training and self control to avoid getting your tower disabled.