The Duke of Cambridge received a special gift from a robot but was left waiting after the machine got stuck. William was introduced to academics from the University’s Robotics Institute who arranged for the royal to meet Bamm-Bamm the robot at Keble College’s new £60million graduate students building. Bamm-Bamm crossed the lecture theatre, collected a plant pot, and traversed the room again to give it to the future king.

The robot, named after The Flinstones character, needed some extra help retrieving the plant from a desk top.

It asked: “Can someone please pass me the plant pot?”

Safely in possession of the foliage, Bamm-Bamm headed across the floor towards William.

The royal joked: “This is where I get run over by a robot.”

Bamm-Bamm stopped in timed and said: “Hi, I’ve brought you the potted plant.

“Please make sure you are holding the object and I will let go.”

William said “I’ve got it” as the robot let go of the item.

The Duke was also shown a robot called Betty, Bamm-Bamm’s mother in The Flinstones.

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Betty is a mobile service robot but due to an electrical fault was immobile during Williams visit.

He said: “She’s having a bad day.”

Associate professor of robotics Nick Hawes explained machines such as Betty were designed to work on anything from nuclear decontamination to supermarket stocktaking.

The robots asses changing environments and then making adjustments to how they behaved.

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William said: “Next time Betty will do some dancing.”

During the dukes hour-long visit he met a range of academics and students.

He also saw also saw how business start-ups developed as spin-offs from the university’s academic work are bringing new technology to the outside world via Oxford Sciences Innovation.

In a demonstration he was shown how Virtual Reality headsets are being used to treat patients with psychosis.

Before he left William unveiled a plaque marking the official opening.

He was teased about once claiming his own university, St Andrews, was the best in the world.

Oxford Vice-Chancellor Professor Louise Richardson previously spent seven years in a similar role at St Andrews.

She said she once believed St Andrews was the best too but recognised Oxford was better.

William, laughing, pointed to the Cambridge part of his title on the plaque and said: “I hope that’s not a contentious word here.”

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