I can't get the alternative version to work for the circles and the Side Three Connecter
I guess we also have to use parts of the original method for the connectors but I don't know how
well in that case I don't find it surprising since you're an expert. I'll continue with the next lesson
Hopefully the rest of the project is going well! For this one I noticed that I left out a Realize Instances node in the screenshot, which, if placed before the Curves to Beam node, makes them all the same width. The screenshot just showed the generation of the circles themselves and not the solidify part. Without the Realize Instances, only the one original circle is getting solidified and then scaled to fit (causing stretching) instead of each circle being solidified separately. Here's a quick example in 4.2:
Toggle the Realize Instances node to see the difference. Hopefully that explains it, but let me know if I'm misunderstanding the question. Either way, luckily, it's not really needed for the result of the course.