I designed a little board that shims under a standard ESP32 module and has capacitive touch, a couple channels of motor driving, MEMs gyros, and LEDs. I was able to get things to $5/unit at qty 50 (counting ESP32) this way and to get exactly what I needed.

My brother taught a robotics team where he used https://www.adafruit.com/product/3333 and was really happy with it... but I wanted something a little beefier and to have wireless options.