How does this robot have addressable LEDs still running when disabled?

[Mschmeh144]

Team 144 uses pololu strips and a arduino uno ( sunfounder uno to be exact), the arduino will continue adressing the strips even if there is no input from the roboRio. The arduino will default to the last used command or color I believe once the robot is disabled. Our robot does this too, but it doesn't do the "rainbow" unless the elevator is at the top when it's disabled, otherwise it just locks in at the solid color it was at ( our lights color code to the height of our elevator, and change accordingly )

Edit: I'm currently working on a project like this, but for the older 2014 bot.