Iowa’s oldest continuously running science fiction and fantasy convention came to Cedar Rapids over the weekend.

The convention enabled visitors to look around at different boutiques of gifts, that their peers have made to reprecent their favorite fiction and fantasy characters.

The convention theme this year was “A Steampunk Convention of the Future.” Stempunk is known is one of many sub-genres of Science fiction, which came to be popular in the 1980′s.

In order to stick with the future theme of the convention, ICON 35 held an activity in which visitors made clothing accessories out of new technologies. The accessories are called Blinkies. Blinkies are made with a simple packet along with LED.  Visitors were able to solder LED lights to these boards (included in the packet) , in order to learn how to make things with new technology.

Dale Sulak, a Blinkies instructor, was excited to showcase his Blinkies a the ICON 35 convention this year, “This gives you an opportunity to see what and how [the] advance[ments] in technology looks like.”

This is the first year that ICON 35 has made creating Blinkies avaiable to visitors, and hopes it will not be the last.

“We hope you [have] fun, learn something and will be a little more curious about electronics and technology in general.” Says Dale Sulak.