I dunno. I think it rather depends on the event organiser. Even when I was new to the Ant Freeze events, the drive wasn't checked as far as I recollect. Either way, we are talking 35 entrants to this event. 30 seconds a check is 17.5 minutes which isn't terrible considering we also have a break after the group stage as well.

Group draw is nearly done, just need to validate that the robots have been split up correctly.