The company at this time was based in a converted barn above a garage at Aylesford, Kent and held stock of around 200 products.

Rapid started by advertising in the retail electronics press to generate sales and a small single sheet catalogue was mailed to customers.

From 1981 the focus was developing sales into electronics departments at universities and colleges and this strategy was successful over the next 10 years.

Among the company's customers are electrical contractors, design engineers and assembly manufacturers, users of open source programming hardware such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi, makers of audio equipment, amateur radio and model railway enthusiasts..

[2] Pupils designed, built and raced environmentally friendly vehicles using solar power or PIC microcontroller technology.