Look at what the tests do:

jar = Jar()

Each instance of the class is initialized without parameter. But that doesn't mean you cannot create some variables in __init__ for your convenience. That's what you need to figure out and it depends on how you solve the kata.

Glad you solved it! I was just replying to say that your solution looked fine to me then I saw your updated message.

Any "way of doing things" is an algorithm - as you just saw with this exercise, just because it's simple doesn't mean it's not powerful (your second "algorithm" finds the same result as your first attempt, but much much faster!).

Hi @conconTheCoder - Yes this is the expected behavior for the tests; your solution with 2 for loops will pass the BASIC test cases since the maximum size in the basic tests is N = 10.

In the FULL tests, i.e. when you click "Attempt" in the kata, your algorithm will be tested on values of N = 41,000. This is designed to time out brute force solutions with 2 for loops. The timeout limit is = 12 seconds on Codewars Python katas.

You can generate a random 41000 x 41000 board on your computer/IDE and see how long your current solution takes with an input of this size! (don't actually do this, it will take hours and/or crash your computer - test your algorithm on boards of size N=100, 200, 300... and notice how much time it is taking to find the solution)