• a long stripe of WS2811 LEDs cut into pieces of 24 each
  
• 4 of these pieces arranged horizontally, making a 24x4 LED matrix
  
• the strips are soldered together on the left and right so they all get signal and power
  
• all done according to this tutorial: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=201753 with the exception that my panel is directly connected to the pi - no other hardware or power supply is necessary.
  

curl https://get.pimoroni.com/unicornhat | bash

#!/usr/bin/env python

import time

import unicornhat as unicorn


print("""Simple

Turns each pixel on in turn and updates the display.

If you're using a Unicorn HAT and only half the screen lights up, 
edit this example and  change 'unicorn.AUTO' to 'unicorn.HAT' below.
""")

unicorn.set_layout(unicorn.HAT)
unicorn.rotation(0)
unicorn.brightness(0.5)
width,height=unicorn.get_shape()


for y in range(height):
  for x in range(width):
    unicorn.set_pixel(x,y,255,0,255)
    unicorn.show()
    time.sleep(0.05)

time.sleep(1)

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo ./rpi_ws281x/test -sgbr -x24 -y4 -g18 -c

pi@raspberrypi:~/Pimoroni/unicornhat/examples