This is the first thing I ended up doing with the laser cutter. A cheesy little radar antenna that stands about 3' tall. It took some experimentation to get all of the concepts involved just right (hole vs plug size for articulation, tolerances, how much material gets burned away, etc). I'm still experimenting with total burn times so all of the pieces stay attached to the piece of MDF and can just be poked out without too much sanding or trimming away excess, but that will have to wait until I can get all the smoke out of my work room!
-Jordan