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