An engineering design tool and methods for using the same are disclosed. A method may include receiving at least one parent design and generating a plurality of first-generation design copies that each include a characteristic that has mutated from the parent design. New generations of design copies are successively produced from the additional design copies based on fitness testing the new generations of design copies. Characteristics from intergenerational design copies that are not within the same generation are utilized to perform intergenerational crossover, and a likelihood of a mutation of a design copy is increased in response to a threshold number of generations without an improvement in a fitness score of a design copy. New generations continue to be successively produced until a likelihood that any design copy with a higher fitness score will be produced is below a statistical threshold.