If you have the Education Base Set, you don't have any 3 x 3 bent beams with pins (pictured above). If the Education Base Set is all you have, how do you deal with a lack of these pins?:
A) Buy the Education Resource Set.
B) Buy the NXT Retail Kit.
C) Buy them on Bricklink.com (good luck).
D) You don't miss what you never had.
E) Buy them wholesale from Steve Hassenplug. (Just kidding, Steve!)
F) Use Jim Kelly's workarounds, listed
G) Some other solution.