A company selling a type of spring makes the following claim: "The elastic potential energy that the spring is capable of storing for a given compression distance does not decrease, even after the spring compresses and/or stretches hundreds of times." The students in a physics class have decided to test the company’s claim.

a.
i. State a basic physics principle or law the students could use in designing an experiment to test the company’s claim.
ii. Using the principle or law stated in part (a)i, determine an equation for the elastic potential energy stored in the spring in terms of quantities that can be obtained from measurements made with equipment usually found in a school physics laboratory.

b. Design an experimental procedure the students could use to collect the data needed to test the company’s claim.