All I want for Christmas is ... 3D printed decorations

Many lucky people will be finding a 3D printer under their Christmas tree this year. But some creative people have gone one step further and used their 3D printer to decorate their tree, house and garden! Here are some of the best we have seen:

Grumpy cat bauble

What could be more festive than the iconic grumpy cat hanging from your Norwegian spruce? 3D artist Matt Bagshaw has created a purr-fect likeness of the feline Twitter celebrity, donned in festive garb, with a hole in the collar to thread a ribbon or hook through. Ideal for the Scrooge in your life.

Labyrinth gift box

A father has devised a cunning way of making his children work harder for their Christmas cash by printing these fantastic gift boxes. An extruded maze-like pattern holds the outer compartment together, and the child has to slide the two parts of the case apart in exactly the right configuration to free the money. As its creator says: "There’s only one correct path and I tried to make it so that it’s easy to slide past the correct exits. Time will tell if it’s effective!”

3D printed bird nest


This seasonal 3D bird feeder from PrintedNest gives birds in your garden a colourful place to refuel and repose over the winter months. Photos, instructions and STL files are available here, with personalised designs possible.

Lego Christmas jumpers

It's the Christmas jumper season, for humans, animals and LEGO minifigs - of course. With 3D printing toys and figurines also get in on the act. Michael Curry's design incorporates different sweater logos and can be upsized if necessary for supersized figures.

‘Reach the Stars Pendant’

Inspired by Grimm's fairy tale 'The Star Money', this filigree silver pendant has been created by designer Loupgarou, illustrating the heroine's endeavor to catch the stars. The beautiful design can be ordered as a 3D print in sterling silver with a high-gloss finish.

Think you can do better? Click here for Rapid's range of 3D printers, from the self-assembly Velleman K8200 for under £400, to the super cool, fast and 10.7 litre build volume of the UP BOX, the new generation in the UP range of 3D desktop printers.

Robot wars, powered by Raspberry Pi

It had to happen. A competition purely for Raspberry Pi-controlled robots. In fact it happened last year as well - and the second annual Pi Wars was held in early December.

30 teams from across the UK descended on the Cambridge Computer Laboratory, along with 'show and tell' exhibitors and a host of sponsors, including Rapid. While the Pi Wars challenges were the reason everyone was there, the day was a celebration of the Raspberry Pi in all its forms and the community which is constantly finding new applications and uses for the board that is still less than four years old.

The robots were classified into two separate categories, those with a smaller footprint than A4 and larger than A4 (and smaller than A3), taking part in seven different challenges -

• Proximity alert - stopping the robot as close to a wall as possible
• Line follower
• Three-point turn
• Straight-line speed test
• Pi Noon (mystery challenge)
• Obstacle course 
• Skittles - releasing a ball to knock down skittles

Rather than bouts between robots as viewers of 'Robot Wars' will remember, these challenges tested particular functions of each robot, from proximity sensing to speed and gradient navigation. For example, the obstacle course included a moving turntable with three entrance points which robots had to negotiate their way into and out of, a hump-backed ramp and a ridge of extruded marbles. Several robots met their end on the fiendish turntable of doom!

The obstacle course's turntable

The joker in the pack was the Pi Noon challenge, which remained a mystery until the day of competition, other than organisers saying that robots needed to ‘have the ability to hold a thin wire at one end’. This added a special twist for the robot makers, many of whom had built their creations with the specific challenges in mind. In reality robots were given a balloon to hold, with a pin attached to one end. It was a case of popping your competitor's balloon before they popped yours!

Competitors were also judged on coding, build quality, aesthetics and the contribution they had made promoting themselves and Pi Wars through blogging. At the end of the day the winners were judged in each category. The overall winners in the 'Larger than A4' category, comprising 8 robots, were Brian Corteil's 'Revenge of the Pyrobot' and Ipswich Makerspace's robot, and in the 'Smaller than A4' category (22 robots) KEITH Evolution and Metabot were the leading robots.

Pi Wars was attended by members of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, including Eben Upton, the Foundation's co-founder, software/hardware architect and public face of the Pi. The day was organised by Michael Horne and Tim Richardson and supported by sponsors including Rapid, CPC and Pimoroni.

Space beckons for Raspberry Pi coders

'Team Terminal' from UTC Lincoln

A team of students from a University Technical College supplied by Rapid have won a prestigious competition, by designing a Raspberry Pi application that will be taken to the International Space Station next month.

Henry Barker, Ralph Reader-Sullivan and Theo Drabble, from UTC Lincoln, won the Astro Pi competition with their series of games that will test astronauts' mental dexterity and reaction times in space. The Astro Pi initiative will see British astronaut Tim Peake run a series of programs on two specially designed Raspberry Pi units as part of the 'Principia' mission. 

Calling themselves 'Team Terminal', the Lincoln students came up with their idea after unearthing some NATO research about the mental atrophy that affects astronauts in space. Their series of reaction games record the response times of the astronauts, with the ultimate aim of discovering how reaction times change over the course of a complete mission. Mentored by Mark Hall, their Computer Science teacher, the students received an added bonus when their entry was voted the best overall submission from the five secondary schools whose ideas made it onto the ISS. The prize for their school is to be photographed from space by an Airbus or SSTL satellite.




The two Astro Pi units Peake will take into space comprise a Raspberry Pi Model B+, a custom real time clock board and the Sense HAT, a bespoke shield created by the Raspberry Pi Foundation for use on the mission. The Sense HAT includes an LED matrix display and is fitted with a range of sensors to measure environmental conditions such as humidity, temperature, pressure, magnetic field and acceleration.

Rapid has been a supplier of UTC Lincoln for several years and helped provide the school with Raspberry Pi computers and accessories that were used by 'Team Terminal' in their project.

Tim Peake

Over 200 primary schools, code clubs and hundreds of secondary schools from across the UK entered the Astro Pi competition. There were seven winning ideas and inventions, including programs that detect the presence of other astronauts on the ISS, use the telemetry data from the NORAD detection system to show the flag of the nation the ISS is flying over, and an environmental system monitor which continually measures the craft's temperature, humidity and pressure and highlights any potential dangers.

The 'Principia' mission launches on December 15th.  

We ALMOST sell flux capacitors

Today is October 21, 2015 - the day Marty McFly and Dr Emmett Brown found themselves in Back to the Future II. A vision was laid before us of flying cars, hoverboards and, er, public fax machines.

We never thought that the future would arrive so quickly, and be so different - and yet so similar - to how it was imagined. Of course, so much that we thought would change has stayed the same; flying cars, a staple on the wish-list of every futurist since HG Wells, has yet again failed to materialise. Perhaps we should finally mothball that one?

Anyway, we thought it would be fun to look at the things Rapid sells today that the movie accurately predicted, and look at the ones that got away:

Quadcopters

In Back to the Future II, robotic drones are seen walking dogs. Unmanned aerial vehicles have been common in a number of fields for several years, from the military to retail, although dog-walking is an application yet to be utilised. We sell a range of quadcopters for hobbyist use, some with integrated cameras, GPS and video glasses for that extra futuristic touch. 

Webcams 

Video calling was not a new idea in 1989, when Robert Zemeckis' movie was released. Stanley Kubrick had featured it in 2001: A Space Odyssey, made in 1968, but neither Kubrick nor Zemeckis envisioned the technology taking place on handheld screens or portable personal computers, as it does in the real 2015. Webcams that clip to laptops make it possible to Skype, not to mention making your own TV shows!

Wearable technology

While self-lacing shoes remain only at the development stage at Nike, other forms of wearable tech have become commonplace. The goggles and headsets worn at the McFly dinner table are uncannily similar to Google Glass and the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Wrist-mounted fitness monitors help runners and health fanatics keep a check on their heart rate, blood pressure and calorific burn, while kits like this one introduce people to incorporating sensors into textiles.

While the technology existed in 1989, how Zemeckis would have loved to have foreseen the incredible advances in 3D printing. The way the cost of 3D printers has plummeted in recent years, and the wide-ranging real world applications of the technology, could mean the 3D printer becoming as ubiquitous a household appliance as a TV or microwave.

And of course there is The Big One: the internet. However, no one can accuse Zemeckis of the cinematic equivalent of rejecting The Beatles - the World Wide Web having only been invented by Tim Berners-Lee the same year as the film was released. A world without email, social media and the Internet of Things now seems as ridiculous as one WITH a flying DeLorean.

And while we do not sell flux capacitors, we do sell flux core solder - and a comprehensive range of capacitors.

Be Our Guest

We all love buying online, but you would probably agree that sometimes the checkout and registration process on websites can be a bit tiresome - more Basil Fawlty than faultless. As part of the most recent update to our desktop and mobile websites, we have introduced a number of features that will help things run a little smoother.

Single page checkout

Firstly, we have streamlined the whole of the checkout process. Every stage of the process - Basket, Delivery Details, Review Order, Payment - is now on the same screen. This makes the checkout a much smoother, more intuitive and hopefully quicker process for customers:

We will, we will, stock you!

We know it's frustrating to search for something on our website and see products returned with different stock statuses - some 'In stock', others 'Stocked in our European warehouse', some even 'Discontinued'. Customers can now filter search results to distinguish between products normally stocked in the UK and those stocked overseas with longer lead times. Please note that this is not a filter to only see ‘In stock items’ - although we are working on functionality that excludes products being listed that are out of stock.

Guest checkout

If you're reading this, then you're probably a registered customer of ours, perhaps even with a credit account.

But not everyone wants to create an online account or remember a password. They just want to place an order on our website, leave, then come back again another day and do the same thing. That is why we have recently introduced a guest checkout, giving customers the opportunity to place an order without registering.

If customers have items in their basket, they will have the option of either signing in or using the guest checkout: 

The only details you will be asked to enter are your email address, name and delivery address. Once you place your order you will be given the option of registering, or activating an offline account which your business may hold at Rapid. The email address you enter has to be one that is not already associated with a registered account at Rapid - otherwise you will be prompted to sign in to that account.

Obviously there are a number of advantages to registering - such as being able to save your baskets, view your order history, see the status of your current order, access your invoices, add different delivery addresses, create personalised order codes and the opportunity to apply for credit facilities. If customers want to benefit from the full experience of being a Rapid customer, we still suggest that they sign up. 

On our mobile website - m.rapidonline.com - unregistered customers have the ability to view the status of their order - but that is all.

Please let us know what you think of the changes we have made.

http://www.rapidonline.com/

The shonkbots are on us!

Rapid was delighted to sponsor a workshop recently at the Bristol Mini-Maker Faire, when members of the Bristol Hackspace showed visitors how to make and program a shonkbot - a very basic robot capable of simple movements. We donated most of the components that went into each of the shonkbot kit bags - such as stepper motors, wheels, breadboards, LEDs, jumper wires and diodes.

The shonkbot itself was developed by several Bristol Hackspace members, as their own spin on a simple miniature robot with basic sensory functionality.

The day was a great success. Young and old alike tried their hand at making a shonkbot and using their creations to move around, draw patterns and emit sounds. Children who started the day never having used a glue gun before, left with a robot they had made themselves. Perhaps we had sparked the fascination of one or two engineers of tomorrow?

Here are some pictures from the day, courtesy of Bristol Hackspace's Richard Sewell.

Jam-packed with Pi fans

The first-ever Ipswich Raspberry Jam was held on Saturday 8th August.

Organised by the Ipswich Makerspace, the day was a great success and well attended by enthusiasts keen to learn more about the Raspberry Pi and develop their skills. The venue, the Enterprise and Innovation Hub at Ipswich County Library was packed with people excited by the power of the Pi - young and old, male and female, experts and beginners. Rapid Electronics was delighted to support the event.

Guest speakers included Clive Beale, Director of Educational Development at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and Andy Proctor, an entrepreneur and e-commerce consultant who has used the Raspberry Pi in the haulage industry. There were displays by a number of retailers (including Rapid) and Raspberry Pi enthusiasts, such as wildlife gadget maker Jason Alexander and the SciPiGuy, who has blogged about the event.

"I was very pleased with the range of demos we were able to put on, including robots, a giant LED display, a clever camera rig and Tweeting all powered by a Pi", said Steve Chalkley of Ipswich Makerspace. "The stars have to be a couple of pre-teens who set up their own Show and Tell stand and had a good crowd the whole time. There were lots of goodies on sale too with Pi starter kits being snapped up by beginners and plenty to tempt enthusiasts. A great day all round, and we will be doing it again, so please join our mailing list to keep up to date with announcements", said Chalkley. 

Here are some images and social media posts from the day ...

@ProctorAndy and Kev from @Maplin_IPS at the #raspberryjam! PI space travel! Robots! @IpswMakerspace pic.twitter.com/7ukj9M7gAM

— Maplin Ipswich (@Maplin_IPS) August 8, 2015

@IPSRaspberryJam was a blast, really good buzz. Lots of kids out there wanting I get into the Pi. pic.twitter.com/vCkqVlXz0w

— Keith's Pi Tutorials (@PiTutorials) August 8, 2015

Just got home from a brill first @IPSRaspberryJam. Fantastic atmosphere. Blog and pics on the way. @Raspberry_Pi pic.twitter.com/4Dx7OnTLXM

— Wildlife Gadget Man (@WildlifeGadgets) August 8, 2015

http://www.ipswichraspberryjam.co.uk/

PayPal now available on Rapid website

We thought you would like to know about the recent changes we have made to our website.

Alongside redesigning our product pages and checkout, there are lots of little touches that we hope will improve the way you navigate the website and manage your account.

Registered customers now have the option of using PayPal to pay for their orders. In the checkout area of both the main and mobile websites, PayPal will be presented as one of your payment options:

Simply select this option to be redirected to PayPal where you will be able to log in to your PayPal account. Once your payment has been submitted, you will be taken back to the Rapid site for your order confirmation. There will be further developments in our PayPal implementation over the next few months, as we increase the choice of payment options available to our customers.

Routes to basket and the checkout are now shorter – for example, you can now add to basket directly from the search results:

Choosing your delivery details on the basket page means one less stage in the checkout process:

You now have an extra opportunity to view your invoices in 'My Account' - from the Order Details page:

We also now have the ability to offer a greater range of price promotions, including giving you more opportunities to save on products you buy regularly, including combining more than one promotion in the same order.

Look out for more improvements in the coming months, and please let us know what you think of the changes we have made.

Chasing the sun

Project Horizon, the Near Space team from Queen Mary's Grammar School in Walsall, is preparing for its third and possibly most ambitious mission yet. In the early hours of Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th June, the team of sixth formers will use a helium-filled weather balloon to release a proble 30km above the Earth, and seek to capture the moment when the sun rises over the horizon.

The team of pupils have produced a mathematical model that predicts the time at which the sun will first be visible over the curvature of the Earth, with the ultimate objective to photograph and record these moments, using the three on-board cameras. The probe's flight computer controls the probe's GPS and radio communications, and will enable the students to keep track of the probe's progress and identify its possible landing point. A beacon will send a signal to help identify the landing spot of the probe in the rocky Welsh countryside where it is likely to land. Click here for a tour of the probe's payload.

Rapid helps sponsor the project, donating electrical equipment that is used to help build the flight computer and radio tracking device.

In the tradition of unmanned space flight, the probe will transport quite a non-human crew - CASSie, the knitted UK Space STEM ambassador, and Sherlock, the furry mascot of QMGS's partner primary school. Recently they have been joined by 100 tiny astronauts donated by the project's latest sponsor, Minifigures.com. 50 male and 50 female minifigures will fly onboard one of the probes and be offered for sale after the mission, with half of all proceeds from sales going to Project Horizon. The figures will be sold with a certificate detailing the height they reached, with a small sample signed by the British astronaut Dr Helen Sharman and returned to the school for its own fundraising.

It is the third Near Space project that the school's sixth form students have undertaken, following two previous missions that sent balloons into the stratosphere. Last year the ‘Project Horizon’ team attempted to beat the altitude reached by Felix Baumgartner in his world record freefall, and in 2013 the school captured some spectacular footage of their first flight 32km above the Earth’s surface.

The team has received messages of support from a wide range of leading figures, space and STEM  organisations, including British astronaut Major Tim Peake:

@horizonqmgs @qmgs1554 @Rapid_Edu looking forward to following your launches & seeing the images captured!

— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) June 12, 2015

The project has also received praise for its outreach programme, which has seen student members of the team visiting local primary schools, sharing the knowledge and skills they have learnt, as well as advising similar projects in other secondary schools and demonstrating at exhibitions.

You can follow the flights on 27th and 28th June on the project's Twitter page and website. 

http://horizon.qmgs.walsall.sch.uk/

From chrome gnomes to garden bling

Here are some great ways to use PlastiKote fast drying spray paint, which is now available from Rapid. All these examples are courtesy of the Spray Paint Ideas blog.

Metallic makeover for garden furniture

The finished articles

New look for hanging baskets

1. Make sure the basket is clean and dry.
2. Spread newspaper/dust sheet out in a well-ventilated working area or preferably outside.
3. Apply two to three coats of PlastiKote Outdoor spray paint in the colour of your choice (ours was Cameo Pink). Allow 5-10 minutes between coats.
4. The basket will be touch dry in 30-50 minutes and thoroughly dry in 2-3 hours.
5. Plant up and hang for a colourful display – even before the flowers have bloomed!

 One of our gnomes is chrome!

Does your cheery garden dweller need a makeover? Don't send him to Gok Wan, just slap the chap with PlastiKote fast drying chrome enamel paint.  This was easy - you can do it in copper too!

View Rapid's full range of PlastiKote spray paint.

Find more inspiration at http://www.spraypaintideas.co.uk/

What is Industry 4.0?

We are entering the Age of the 4th Industrial Revolution - but what is it, and does it frighten or excite you? 

The great breakthrough of Industry 4.0, as it is being called, is the networking of machinery. This, it is predicted, will have a similar effect on industrial processes as steam power, electrical energy and computing in the three previous 'Industrial Revolutions'. The simplest definition would be that it is the application of the Internet of Things on the factory floor - machinery and products that communicate with each other on the production line.

The chief executive of Siemens, Anton Huber, calls it "the ability to literally have everything imaginable connected to a network so that information from all these connected 'things' can be stored, transferred, analysed and acted upon in new, and usually automated ways via network connections with everything else".

Industry 4.0 first surfaced in Germany and received its public UK debut earlier this year. A conference dedicated to the subject was held in January at the National Space Museum in Leicester, while the UK's first "digital factory" has been built and is running at the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry.

 

The Industry 4.0 demonstrator is a joint project by a number of organisations, including industry bodies ESCO, automation trade association GAMBICA, Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, enterprise location intelligence provider Ubisense and robotics specialist Shadow Robot. The demonstrator uses existing real-world machines to create a continuous production line, to which users can interact by adding new technologies, as a way of discovering how different data can affect the functions of the robotic elements of the system.  

The Industry 4.0 demonstrator at the MTC

The digitisation of production processes offers huge opportunities for robotics and specialist engineering, and lobbying is currently taking place for a £12m fund to develop aspects of the technology for the future benefit of the UK. New electronic components are also being developed for integration into Industry 4.0, by companies such as Phoenix Contact, Siemens and Festo. Phoenix Contact is developing terminal rails which can be individually populated with terminal blocks, while Festo is working on 'intelligent components' which will be able to organise themselves in automated systems. 

Are you excited about the opportunities presented by this new Industrial Revolution? Are you involved with the technology within your own business?

Headphone moments

Give headphones a chance!

As Rapid expands its stock of headphones with a range of products from some of the world's leading audio brands, we take a look at headphone history.

From the studio earpieces that have accompanied some of pop's greatest recording moments, to the Sony Walkman and the Apple earbud, headphones have an iconic place in music history. Their progress from recording studio to home to mobile reflects how far music has become a personalised, even polite experience: instead of turning it up loud in the spirit of rebellion, you put your headphones on to respect the privacy of those around you. Of course, whether this succeeds or not depends upon the quality of your cans!

The 'Electrophone'

First used by telephone switchboard operators in the late 19th century, the earliest headphones were a bulky contraption which involved a transmitter strapped to the operator's shoulder and an earpiece. Various incarnations of the instrument were to follow in these early years for a range of applications, but in terms of audio consumption one of the pioneering inventions was the 'electrophone', a stethoscope-like device which music-lovers clamped to their ears to hear live stereo performances from The Royal Opera House. This, remarkably, was in 1895!

Something resembling the classic headphone was first made in a Utah kitchen by a fundamentalist Mormon named Nathaniel Baldwin in 1910. He sold them to the US Navy who used them for radio communication, but strangely Baldwin never patented the device.

Nathaniel Baldwin's headphones from 1910

He surely regretted this when the next major breakthrough in headphone development arrived in 1952. John Koss used the money he had been given as a wedding present to buy a sofa to start a business renting portable phonographs, but headphones became a profitable sideline. His Koss SP3 stereophones were the first to be recognised as delivering a high quality of sound for listening to music. Their over ear, closed back design became popular among the leading figures in rock music during the 1960s and 1970s.

Paul McCartney with his Koss SP3-XC headphones

Once bands like Pink Floyd pioneered the use of multi-track recording, headphones became a gateway into a new world of audio delights, enabling listeners to appreciate hitherto unheard musical detail. Surely everyone has had a 'headphones moment' like former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe:

"Horses pretty much tore my limbs off and put them back together in a different way. It was so completely liberating. I had my parents crappy headphones and I sat up all night with a huge bowl of cherries listening to Patti Smith."

The original Sony Walkman

Despite this kind of epiphany (even with 'crappy' headphones), audiophiles were still shackled to their Hi-Fi's. That all changed in 1979 when the Sony Walkman made personal music possible on the move. The foam cushion pads of Sony's MDR-3L2 headphones did not perhaps deliver the best sound, but what they lacked in audio quality and noise-cancellation they more than made up for in sales. Portable headphones had their year zero. Over the last 36 years we have seen the rapid progress of on-ear and in-ear technology to meet the demands of modern lifestyles and listener's expectations. A pair of white Apple earbuds is estimated to be owned by 1 in 4 people on Earth, such is the proliferation of iPods, iPhones and iPads.

It is not only noise cancellation, bass and treble that are the holy grail for headphone makers. When hip-hop legend Dr Dre went into partnership with boutique audio equipment maker Monster in 2008, he created a market for high end headphones. Bling was now as important as bass. Denim-finished headbands and wood veneer styling were all part of the headphone experience.

Beats by Dr Dre headphones

Music fans have a head-spinning choice of ear candy at Rapid, including products from Behringer, Sony, AKG Harman, Beats by Dr Dre, Marshall and Sennheiser. We are most excited about Sennheiser, long regarded by DJs, broadcasters and musicians as an industry benchmark. Sennheiser's HD25 headphones are among the most requested by live sound engineers and DJs around the world and have recently celebrated their 25th birthday. "You can hear notes in songs you have never heard before with low down powerful bass and high quality trebles", writes a recent reviewer on the Rapid website. "Having used these for a number of years the Sennheiser HD range have passed the test of time and have outlasted other headphones within the same price bracket." 

You can view Rapid's complete headphone range here.

So what is your favourite headphone moment? Which piece of music blows you away when played between the ear pads?

Ten years: a lifetime in electronics

James Bell

By James Bell, Managing Director, Rapid Electronics
 
They say a week is a long time in politics. Well, ten years is a lifetime in electronics.

It is only when you look back at an old catalogue or web page that you realise how much has changed about the way we sell our products.

In 2005 Rapid saw itself unequivocally as a catalogue-based distributor, as it had been for the previous 26 years. The company had only been selling products online for a year, very rarely emailed its customers and published at least two 1,000 page catalogues per year. The following year the website was relaunched as www.rapidonline.com (click here to see what it looked like back then), but online orders represented barely 20% of overall sales.

Fast forward to 2015 and we have achieved 50% of our sales through the web. We no longer produce a printed catalogue for industry customers, which would have been unthinkable ten years ago.

The way we were

Today, the website is our main sales channel. Customers can use a range of online services and tools, such as the ability to place scheduled orders and enter personalised part numbers, as well as order on a smartphone or tablet via our mobile website. Recent innovations include an upgrade to our product search functionality and giving customers a more personalised user experience, depending on the industry sector in which they work. We are also able to offer a not in catalogue service (NIC), giving customers access to products not listed on our website or catalogue, which is only possible due to the close relationships we have with our suppliers.

Customers expect same day despatch and increasingly next day delivery as standard features, access to full online catalogues on mobile devices and the ability to post immediate reviews of products or services. Social media has transformed brand management. If a customer has a negative experience with your company, the whole world – rather than just a member of your sales team – will know about it. Equally, a good experience can make your followers your brand ambassadors.

Thankyou @Rapidonline a whole caseload of stuff I ordered yesterday afternoon here by 08:30 this morning.
— Nigel Booth (@m0cvo) June 18, 2014

Not being restricted by catalogue cycles has enabled Rapid to become a more dynamic player in a fast evolving industry. We can update product information more quickly. Targeted email marketing and social media brings new products to the attention of buyers at a fraction of the cost and time it would have taken ten years ago. This has been especially important during the recent microcomputer boom. Selling the various incarnations of the Raspberry Pi has been incredibly exciting for us – a product that has unique crossover appeal amongst our industrial, educational and hobbyist customers.

Securing Rapid's future

Everyone in the industry has had to respond to the changing face of technology. But that does not tell the whole story of the last decade at Rapid. I joined the company in 2010 and "Rapid" is certainly an apt way to describe the changes that have taken place inside the business since then. 

Becoming part of the Conrad Group in 2012 was a huge step for us.

Rapid had been an independent company since it was founded in 1979 so it was not a decision we took lightly, but Conrad has secured Rapid's future and provided us with many exciting new opportunities. 

Rapid's HQ and distribution centre in Colchester, Essex

It has helped to breathe new life into our product portfolio and procurement strategy, enabling us to move into different product areas and strengthen others. We are also able to share resources, best practice and logistics, and benefit from Conrad’s global supply chain.

Conrad has market coverage across Europe and significant economies of scale. We have worked closely with them to vastly expand our electronic, electrical and e-mech ranges, signed distribution agreements with major suppliers and increased our stockholding from 50,000 to 100,000 products. By the end of 2015 we aim to increase this figure to 200,000. Web and ERP systems will be developed to meet the demands of an expanding business. But we will still stock and source those components that customers have told us they struggle to find elsewhere – the resistor or transistor, for example, which keeps their product or application running.

Competitive prices and fast fulfilment times are part of the Rapid DNA, and we have always been “serious about electronics”. But now we have the infrastructure, the products and the processes in place to define the standard in electronics distribution for the next ten years.       

This article originally appeared in a special supplement published by Electronics Sourcing magazine in April 2015 to mark its 10th anniversary