[boomergeek]

I think we have one ref concentrating on every tower anyway looking for penalties and disablement.
I think we can trust ref's to press an "enablement" button as soon as the minibot crosses the starting line, then use the sensors on the plate integrated over 40 milliseconds to record the time I.e., the tower plate is inactive until after the ref decides the minibot crossed the start line fairly.

Whatever the triggering mechanism: it NEEDS to be published and the sooner the better. If not, then some teams will end up getting an advantage over others because of the multiple hats of developers, testers and facilitators.