Gamepad control for robot

Hi guys,

Beginner C# programmer here. I am looking to control a robot via a gamepad and code it through Visual C# (the interface and C# code). What will need to happen is that when the user presses the UP button, it will convert that UP command into a data stream of about 11 bytes and send it through the serial port on a PC.

Can someone give me insight on what I should be using to achieve this? I have looked around and it seems that this can be done with the XNA platform with this:
http://xnadirectinput.sourceforge.net/

I will use an off the shelf gamepad.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Actually it seems like i can just use the DirectX SDK and use DirectInput for this. I'll look into this a bit more.

I would rather make that controller talk directly to the robot via a micro controller,
instead of using PC+RS232 for middle ware.

I would too, but it is a user interface for the end user.