What if you had a spoked wheel (bicycle wheel) where every spoke had a little spring loaded collar at the location of the shaft. As the shaft hits the collar, it is pushed out of the way while the other spokes, secure in their collars maintain enough tension to keep the wheel attached.
spoke closed '===', the collar is '/' and the shaft '(asterisk)'.
Spoke direction of travel is s4 -> s0.
s0c------===------
s1c------===------
/
s2o------/*-------
s3c------===------
s4c------===------
etc.
When the collar closes, its spoke will have pulled apart a little bit under the tension and widened the gap. You'd need some kind of motorized grabber-puller collars to make this work.
spoke closed '===', the collar is '/' and the shaft '(asterisk)'.
Spoke direction of travel is s4 -> s0.