What type of energy would a click-pen or mechanical pencil use?

How was this Homework assignment worded?

Think about the different parts of a mechanical pencil or click pen. What components might contain energy? If you’re not sure, take one of them apart. They’re usually quite easy to put back together.

Think about the different kinds of energy there are, and you will be able to answer this for yourself. Only one answer fits.

Mechanical energy deals with motion or the potential for motion, whereas chemical energy deals with chemical bonds. Are there any chemical bonds being broken in a pen?

I’m pretty sure it’s all kinetic. There’s the force of your thumb pushing down which transfers to the clicky part which then compress a spring. Could we have more info?

@Bugabear

Potential energy is stored in the spring.

@Ivan What I mean’t by that is energy is required to push down the spring. I’m not talking about the spring popping back up.

Kinetic energy. Kinetic energy has to do with all motion. It’s defined as one-half times the object’s mass and the square of its speed (KE = ½ * mass * velocity squared).