well i took ur advice Ken, but is not that cheating? :P

Edit:Its fixed Now :)

Katas like this have a simple way of solving. Create an array of the required numbers as global variable/object so that you don't have to calculate them again and again. This is why it's a 6 kyu. I hope this helps.

Yep, came across this near the end.

Would honestly have preferred the prompt include time as the restricting factor.

Spent way too much time going down a rabbit hole of making an elegant solution.

Felt a little hard for 6 kyu. Did anyone manage to do it without memorizing results?

It would have been a fun kata if it hadn't been for the unclear definition of spiral.

Solved it :) Thanks for the explanation!

count 1 each time you "use" a letter, and you can use every letter only one single time.

Can you do B -> A -> B -> G to get (BAG), would that count as part of input(B, 3)? If you can't what is the restriction, you can't traverse the same path? In this case I can go from B -> A but I can't turn back to using the path A -> B.

The combinations part is confusing, does (BDG) and (BGD) count as 1 or 2?

Thanks! Maybe I'll have a lightbulb moment later, really enjoyable kata nonetheless.

up! Someone to approve those two?

it's somewhat a spoiler, yes. Sort of.

You're on the good path, somehow, but to pass, you'll need to find a way to avoid the recursion. Your structure is a good base to get to the solution and achieve that. But now you have the hardest part to find.

I was timing out so I asked my function to return an arbitrary number without any additional computation, just to do that it took over 8 seconds. Is our algo supposed to run in under 4 seconds? (Python 3.6)